DGM: Exorcist wa Maidsama!
by Lilac Lenalee
Summary: The battle's on as the Black Order holds its annual fundraiser, pinning girls against guys in a fight for the top prize! However, drama ensues as Lenalee finds herself working at a maid cafe and Allen struggles to win back Lenalee's approval. *Allena*
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** OMG WHAT IS THIS? ME DOING ANOTHER SERIES? I MUST BE GOING MAD! But anyways, I got the idea for this after I started watching Kaichou wa Maid-sama! (which I'm totally loving, btw), but don't worry, this AllenxLenalee series will have quite a different story line from it. However, there are a lot of terms I use that may be foreign or unclear to you, so please take a moment to read some of them below:

Moe: Japanese slang word that can mean 'a person who is in love/obsessed with an anime/manga/video game character' or refers to a character who is 'innocently adorable' or 'budding with adorableness'.

Okaerinasaimase: welcome back!

Goshujin-sama: master

Kawaii: cute, adorable

Fuwa Fuwa: light, fluffy, spongy

Moyashi: beansprout

Tsundere: a character who acts tough and cold-hearted on the outside, but on the inside is actually/becomes kind and caring.

Kari Kari Chu Chu: game played in Japan with pocky. Involves two players, and each one must have one end of a pocky stick in their mouth. They then eat the pocky until their lips touch.

Head's-Up: poker term that means a one-on-one battle.

Okay, I think I got them all. But anyways, please... if possible... ENJOY! *crosses fingers*

* * *

The air had turned into a psychological candy shop, a sweets sanctuary for the mind; every blink like sweeping strands of candy floss manipulating you into a web of sweet stickiness, every heartbeat like freshly poured soda powering a herd of tropical-flavoured pop rocks, every breath like love at first bite. From inside the heavenly cove, one could almost _see_ the noxiously pink fumes of perfume snaking about, the kind of vaporous serpents that reeked of everything feminine and cute and made you want to squeal in frightful glee at nothing in particular.

Moe had never seemed so scarily real.

Yet here Allen stood, pathetically pondering whether he should be a man and walk right into the place, or forever remain a loitering moe-virgin. Biting his bottom lip, he gathered up every precious ounce of testosterone his pint-sized adolescent body could produce; he was ready to risk his manliness on the **Toxically Moe **battlefield, a battle that would no doubt starve him of all his mannerisms and replace them with kinky adolescent pleasures that brainwashed the mind into a world of customized hentai.

Just the name of the café itself— _Toxically Moe_— suggested complete mind intoxication, implied that a whole _arsenal_ of moe-approved poisons would readily fuck the brain into a state of fluffy, heart-shaped death. All finished off with a cutesy bow. Oh yes, Allen was aware of the deadly cache of poisons that would no doubt eat his mind away if he were to _dare_ enter the maid café before him; first would be Kawaii, a poison that acts quickly on the heart by first making it beat with ridiculous ecstasy, then swiftly creates a feeling of sugar-coated euphoria that remodels the mind into a habitat for breeding dirty thoughts. Then came the mysterious poison Tsundere, a toxin that would at first tickle your ego into a superfluous sense of supremacy when suddenly, it'd take your nervous system hostage, forcing it to develop feelings of tender loving care that scare you so much, some have been said to even lose consciousness. And after that….

After that, not even Allen knew what came next.

Entering a maid café had never before seemed like such a deadly form of suicide.

"OOOOH, WALKER'S GOT A FETTISH FOR LACE PANTIES!"

With a classic moyashi whimper (which was technically a mixture of high-pitched screaming, whimpering, and pubescent vocal cords) Allen stumbled around himself, coming face to face with a wildly-smirking Fou.

"Shut up!" he failed to whisper the words, instead spitting them in over-dramatic defence. "I have _never_ seen lace panties in my life, _Fou_!"

She gave him a look that clearly thought otherwise. "You _do_ know what awaits you once you go in there… right?"

She was obviously referring to the maid café. But just the way she had lowered her voice, had so sinisterly allowed the shadow to fall across her eyes so as to make one's extremities shiver extensively, made Allen want to piss himself. He suddenly had a very bad, bad feeling…

"Uhh…."

"First," Fou was now leading Allen a safe distance away from Toxically Moe, her arm placed forcefully around his neck, "they'll bombard you with their sing-songy welcome bullshit that's intended to make every man jizz a little…"

"But Fou, this isn't even a pro—"

"THEN," she raised her voice, evidently not even close to being finished, "they'll twirl around you in a cyclone of boobs and lace, torturing you with their empty-cal words and creepily perfect shoulder massages!"

Allen's sweat glands were on the verge of crying. "That's, um, not _that_—"

"And finally, just when you think you have enough time to give birth to a fresh batch of testosterone…" Fou leaned in close, her eyes glinting with a fiery disgust Allen thought she only used in battle. "They_ feed_ you."

"Feed me?" The world had brightened considerably.

"Aye… omelette and rice."

"OMELETTEANDRI—"

"_Pink_ omelette and rice, Walker. PINK."

The word echoed corrosively through his head, _pink… pink… pink…_

"But Fou, how do you—"

"HAVE FUN WALKER!"

With unnecessary violence Allen was thrown right into the entrance of Toxically Moe, nearly ensuing a crash-landing with a cat-eared, fluffy-skirted waitress.

"Okaerinasaimase, goshujin-sama!"

He had officially, irreversibly, entered the superbly pink and frilly domain…. _of moe_.

"Um—"

His mind was already a puddle of sugary neurotic slush. All he could see were female bodies dripping in lace and frills and bows and… dear god, he never knew so many bows could exist at one time and _not_ threaten to cause a deadly pandemic. Allen's senses were overcome with synaesthesia as the smell of chocolate-covered pinkness threatened to turn him into a heavily gawking figure of mad mindlessness.

"Where would you like to sit today, goshujin-sama?"

Allen gave the waitress a blank look, his vocal cords failing to fulfill their role as a communication device. His mouth was trying its absolute hardest to form a comprehendible syllable, but the smile exploding off the waitress' face was tranquilizing every mouth muscle into an instantaneous bout of unconsciousness.

"He's with us."

Before he could even comprehend what was going on, Allen was being manoeuvred towards a table overtaken by a fungus of doilies and glitter, his distress nearly stopping him from recognizing the people sitting around the heavily infected table: Krory and Chaoji.

With a jolt, he was placed rather harshly into his chair by Lavi.

"So the Moyashi's still alive, eh?"

"Not funny Lavi."

He tried his best to optically murder the red-headed mouthpiece (who was now comfortably sitting next to him) with a steely glare; however, his attempt at supernatural murder was hastily interrupted as a frothing pink beverage planted itself on the table, clouds of fairy-pink foam bubbling over the rim with chaotic messiness.

"What—"

Not a word escaped his mouth as a hot towel was efficiently spread atop his hands. A waitress, with hair like bloated twirls of black licorice and cocoa eyes the size of fire-roasted marshmallows, was now quite comfortably tidying his hands with the hygienic warmth of a fuzzy pink towel, delicately pressing into his hands and blanketing his skin in soft, melodic warmth…

Hell, the towel wasn't the only thing that felt rather fuzzy…

The waitress suddenly stood up, a vivacious sort of smirk highlighting her face in a way that made her dimples turn gothic and her sweeping eyelashes pollinate her eyebrows. That was when Allen realized that she too had been infected by the disease consuming the table; her maid-outfit was heavily infected with lacy bows, their deadly shape scarring her neck and enveloping her arms, munching away at her snow-flushed skin in horrifying numbers. The bows almost looked like living, breathing organisms, leaching away at her sanity till nothing was left but a tabula rasa of moe mentality. Allen prayed feverishly that the disease wasn't of the highly contagious variety.

"My name is Alice, and I'll be your personal maid for today!" the way she sung the words hypnotized the entire table into an obvious state of disillusioned bliss. "Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have, and I hope you have a toxically moe-moe time!" And, having said that, the heavily-diseased waitress named Alice had tra-la-la'd off at hyper-cute speed into a room Allen could only guess contained more moe-moe minions.

Thankfully, a shrill whistle broke his thoughts from adventuring any further. "Some damn fine eye-candy, eh boys?" Lavi had obviously given the café his stamp of approval.

"It makes me miss Eliade ever so terribly," Krory sniffled, tears seasoning the rims of his eyes.

"What, did Eliade serve you in maid attire all the time or something?" Lavi seemed to swoon at his own remark, never one to miss an opportunity for kinky chitchat.

"I beg your pardon?"

"SO, Allen," the Bookman apprentice had suddenly switched over to a look of mild seriousness. "Is the plan still a go?"

"I dunno…" Allen was too distracted making his straw perform flimsy pirouettes in his drink to answer properly; he still had no idea what the drink was, but had hypothesized it was some kind of poison when he discovered pop rocks erupting from out of its swampy fuchsia surface. Fou's words were freakishly replaying in his head.

"What, you don't think it's ethical?"

"Well, not exactly…"

"Allen," Lavi was leaning across the table now, his eye glazed in a competitive ocular marinade. "Look at this place. It's fucking moe heaven on earth."

He shifted self-consciously in his seat, the pink interior threatening to overtake his reasoning skills.

"Stay with me here Allen!"

"Sorry."

"So anyways," he regained his former semi-mature tone. "If we wanna beat the girls, we have no other choice."

Much as he hated to admit it, Lavi had a point. For days all the girls of the Order had gathered at the Asian branch to strategize and discuss plans for the annual Black Order fundraiser, an event that, although_ supposed_ to be annual, rarely ever took place. All events were open to the public, a rule that effectively generated a little extra money for the Order as well as helped create an environment for healthy socialization. According to Komui, the fundraiser was a "friendly battle of the sexes, meant to spawn friendships and raise money for a worthy cause", and the winner would be determined by whichever team could raise the most money in three weeks. Participation was mandatory, and teams had been decided on before the announcement: all the females of the Order, all the males, and finally, the entire science division, with each team being allowed to break into smaller groups so long as they remained with their appropriate teammates.

So far, however, participation seemed to be rather half-ass; both Fou and Kanda were just two of the people Allen had immediately noticed not openly participating in any events (even though Lavi had declared Kanda had eagerly agreed to help them), and, on top of that, none of the "higher-ups" or generals had made an appearance as of yet to help support the cause. But, regardless of Allen's realizations, there was absolutely nothing he could do about being stuck in a maid café, in the middle of the Asian branch, discussing with his team how best to raise money over a glamorously salivating cup of pink liquid. It didn't get much more fucked than that.

He stood corrected as Alice re-approached them, her arms burdened with four plates of perfectly fluffy, perfectly placed, and, scariest of all, perfectly _pink_ omelette and rice. With graceful sensuality she placed the dishes before the four exorcists, her arms squeezing with mild self-awareness against her chest in a way that made her boobs pop up delightfully. Allen could feel himself gaping, his senses fully imperialized by his newly awakened id.

With a giggle capable of inflicting diabetes, Alice gave a curt bow, her cheeks stained the color of crushed rose petals as she straightened back up. "Enjoy your meal goshujin-sama!"

Under normal circumstances, Allen would've zealously attacked the plate of food like a mannerless farm animal; however, he had yet to experience a plate of fuwa fuwa pinkness staring back at him like this. Somehow, the girlish color hadn't elicited the usual jump of his stomach the same way normal-hued food could.

Chaoji was the first to brave the silence. "Did we order this?"

"Guess they read minds too," Lavi remarked rather bluntly, his jewel-encrusted fork poking the pink mound before him rather uncertainly. "Although I thought they were supposed to write stuff with ketchup…"

"You're so smart goshujin-sama!" Alice had magically popped up from behind Lavi's chair, a bottle of (thankfully) red ketchup clutched in her hand. "Did you really think I had forgotten?"

All Lavi could do was laugh with flirtatious awkwardness as Alice busily squirted a message onto his dish of exotic pinkness. "Ta-da!"

Like a butterfly fuelled by pixy stick life support Alice made her way around the table, artfully squirting ribbons of glistening ketchup kanji onto everybody's steaming omelettes. Allen was pleased to see the words "Kawaii Moyashi" decorating his feminine plate of egg and rice.

"Enjoy, goshujin-sama!"

Again, she frolicked off to her lair of moe madness, a lacy set of underwear peek-a-booing hello to the boys as her skirt skipped jovially about her thighs.

"Is she really from the Order?" the question Allen had been meaning to ask finally made it out of his brain.

"Apparently the girls are allowed to bring in any friends they might have, since they have _way_ less people than us guys," Lavi mumbled, his mouth now filled with the collaborative pink juices of egg and rice. "Rumor has it all the maids are Lou Fa's friends."

"EHH?" A piece of slimy pink egg nearly launched itself into Allen's airway. "LOU FA'S HERE?"

"Say it a little louder why don't you! We _are_ at the Asian branch dipshit!"

As if summoned to, Allen turned his head to the right, and, with inevitable unexpectedness, laid eyes on a gleefully waving Lou Fa, maid-outfit and all. Feeling his body temperature drop a few million degrees, he frantically gulped back his toxic pink drink; regrettably, the cherry-tastic vibration of effervescent liquid fireworks whizzing down his throat did nothing to alleviate his discomfort.

"Oh, and to avoid any other future surprises," Lavi hissed, apparently feeling the need to talk at a secretive volume, "Lenalee's also working here."

Allen immediately began choking on his beverage; the liquid sliding down his throat had suddenly taken on a much more lethal, sharp-edged taste. For a moment he seriously thought he was ingesting pink-disguised antifreeze.

"Christ Allen, you act as if you've never been to one of these places before!"

"I-I haven't."

He was growing quickly wary of Lavi's intensifying smirk. "Really? I would've thought Cross'd brought you to these kinda joints _all_ the time—"

"LAVI!" Pretty pink spoon dangerously in hand, Allen was preparing to gauge Lavi's cocky little Bookman eyeballs out when a hand had firmly grabbed hold of his wrist. "Think before you act, Walker."

Oh great, _Link_ had come to join the party. Allen felt like giving him a welcoming dump on the crotch with his deliciously revolting pink drink, but regrettably withheld the urge.

"Oh my, another wonderfully handsome goshujin-sama has arrived!" Alice had yet again performed her appear-out-of-thin-air act, and was shoving the newly arrived Link into a chair with a speed that seemingly produced its very own rainbow-colored stardust.

Link, amidst the whole moe assault, had adopted a rather pleasing expression of winded disorientation; he had obviously not at _all_ been prepared to face the kawaii violence brooding within the café's walls. And, to make the moment even more priceless, the cherry on top of the whole ordeal was when Link's gloves were briskly removed from his hands and scrubbed clean with the help of Alice's soothing hot towel treatment.

"Atta boy Link, take it all in!" Both Lavi and Allen were laughing with rude intensity at Link's rare display of befuddlement, the overdose of sugar (most likely from the unknown drink concoction) thrusting them into a state of incredibly bad-mannered hollering.

Eventually, however, the boorish display of hysterically wild laughter was brought to an end; mostly due to Link's threat that he'd report Allen and Lavi to Central if they continued their "unruly and completely unnecessary" behaviour. Chaoji and Krory had just sat in gauche silence.

Now that the sugar had begun working its magic on Allen's mental processes and bodily actions, the tangy pink drink—initially believed to have been a cup of sweetly disguised poison—was being downed like crack-infused milk. His body was twitching all over in hyper-idiot mode, arousing within him a desire to blurt dirty thoughts and participate in blaringly obvious stare fests (along with Lavi, of course, who was also becoming highly interested in the bubbly pink beverages of glitter and shine).

"Okay Allen, serious question here," Lavi was bending low towards the table, his eyes darting back and forth in rapid excitement. "What size do you think Alice is?"

Before he could even answer, Link was face-palming in evident censure (Alice had _insisted_ on holding his notepad, thus forcing him to participate in the table's growingly unreasonable conversation). The sugar was making his thoughts turn so terrifically sparkly, all responses became consequently delayed.

"How am I supposed to know? I don't buy skirts Lav—"

"Dumbass!" Allen was rewarded a punch in the shoulder, making his head churn like a fire-filled snow globe. "I mean _cup_ size."

"…. OH."

Not trying in the least to be discreet in his visionary gauging, Allen did an extremely rough calculation of Alice's chest, dusty old measuring tips from Cross suddenly littering his mind. He chose to semi-ignore these.

"Well?"

"A solid B."

"OHO, that's what I was gonna say! Great minds think alike—"

A purposefully intrusive clearing of the throat emanated from Link's segment of the table.

"What, you have an objection to that Link?" Lavi and Allen were eying him coolly.

"Not a bit."

Snickering rather loudly, Lavi leaned in towards Allen, a wild grin animating his face. "Oi, I bet Link secretly measures _all_ the time…"

"I highly recommend you stop making such vulgar accusations." Link had proceeded in taking out his emergency notepad, his pen suspended threateningly over top, ready to tattle. A deliberate 'click' confirmed his seriousness.

The Bookman-to-be purposefully turned away from Link (though this proved to be quite difficult considering he sat across from him) and hastily guzzled Chaoji's untouched pink drink in his efforts to extinguish the lethal levels of awkwardness. "Right, uhh, what were we talking about before?"

"You were talking about cup sizes, silly goshujin-sama!" Alice was suddenly beaming before them all as if she'd just managed to set up the perfect blind date.

The table of men, meanwhile, responded to the surprise eavesdrop attack with a fantastic display of "fuck-my-life" silence, one that ravaged the table and made them all look like open-mouthed bug-eyed sea creatures screaming on mute. They had officially been left to die in the middle of the moe jungle, mere prey for the carnivorous fangs of the maid leopard Alice.

"Huh? What's wrong goshujin-sama?" Alice continued to make the situation ten times worse by acting like she had no idea what naughty trickery she was playing at. "Didn't you wanna see our different cup sizes? All you had to do was ask!"

Link's pen hit the table.

"Lookie! We have size A, B, or C!" Three different sized pink-tinted cups had now poofed into Alice's lace-gloved hands, hot pink labels identifying them as either size A, B, or C.

The triviality of the whole situation was bordering on unbearable.

"Oh, and Alice also heard that goshujin-sama knows Lena-chan?" she giggled the question with such malicious sweetness, Allen could've sworn his immune system had shut down. None of the men had recuperated enough to answer the yes or no question, providing Alice with the chance to chatter on. "Well in that case, I'll go get Lena-chan right now goshujin-sama, you simply _must_ see her!"

The entire party of bewildered males shrieked their objection, but Alice the moe-jungle cat was already stalking away in selective hearing mode, leaving her prey alone and terrified.

"This is so fucked," Lavi was the first to speak, his voice coming out loud and crackly from all the shock. The rest of the table, meanwhile, was still trying to lock away pre-imagined images of Lenalee in a maid outfit, their faces all contorted into knots of guilty self-restraint. Allen particularly felt like his mind was about to blow-up in surrender to all the moe attacks. That was when he noticed Lavi shooting him an unnerving glance, his single eye shimmering like a shadow-bathed emerald suspended in a socket of secrets.

"What're you looking at me for?"

Lavi continued his gaze of subtle bully. "You prepared for this, Allen?"

"Huh?"

Fully enjoying his current mood of gay-ass riddling, Lavi turned away from the confused exorcist, leaving Allen to glare at the side of his face rather unclimatically. The desire to throw cutlery at him was quickly returning.

"_What_, Lavi?"

"No seriously, it's nothing" he smiled, pink straw waving from between his teeth. "I'm just excited to see how long it takes."

"How long it takes till what?"

His only response was a spit-coated straw in the face.

* * *

"Absolutely not."

"Aww, come _on_ Lena-chan!" Alice put on her most spectacular, knee-buckling pout. "They'll be so happy to see you in your super cutesy maid outfit!"

Lenalee pivoted around in evident discomfort. "The answer's _no_, Alice."

"Hmph! Well you're no fun."

A nerve exploded somewhere inside Lenalee's head. Just the looming knowledge that her _male_ friends (minus Link) were all out there, multiplied with the fact that Lou Fa's friends were becoming increasingly annoying with every dying second, was enough to give her a splitting, mind-numbing headache. The temptation to dump a whole bottle of aspirin onto the floor, stamp atop them all till they resembled drugged snow fluff, and mix them all up with that _disgusting_ pink drink concoction of grenadine, C.C. Lemon, and pop rocks (Toxically Moe's "specialty" drink creation), was becoming one highly attractive inducement.

"You know what, Lena-chan?"

Somehow, Lenalee was able to find an emergency reserve of patience within her. "What?"

"I think I know what the _real_ problem is here." The way her voice had so spicily inflicted sent a perturbing tingle down Lenalee's spine.

"Then what—"

"You totally like one of them!"

The chord powering Lenalee's thoughts had been snipped. Her mind became a static blizzard, stranding all her nerves in a snowstorm of electrifying confusion until finally, a full-blown power outage assaulted her body; all she could see, all she could feel, could taste, could hear… was blankness.

"That's not true, Alice," her words came out choppy and unintentionally high-pitched. "We're all just friends. They're like my family, actually…"

"Is it Chaoji-sama?"

Her co-worker's disillusionment had suddenly morphed into blatantly oblivious nosiness. "No."

"Lavi-sama?"

"Nope."

"Oh my god it _couldn't_ be Link-sama?"

"NO!"

"Krory-sama then?"

"Alice, I don't like—"

"Allen-sama?"

At that, Lenalee felt her heart gag a little on its own blood. "… no."

"OH MY GOD ITS ALLEN-SAMA ISN'T IT?"

Before Lenalee could even deliver a haughty rebuttal Alice was twirling about the room in utter fantasy mode, her female senses squeezing every ounce of hidden meaning from Lenalee's defensive actions with freakish skill. "Lena-chan and Allen-sama SITTING in a tree, K I S S—"

"SHUT UP!" Lenalee had no choice but to press a wet dish towel across her jabbering mouth, for the sake of the customers' ears and her own auditory health. Her face had become mercilessly flooded in a tsunami of blush. "Just shut up, a-and go serve your clients… or… something."

The dish rag slid off Alice's mouth to reveal a wicked grin, her smeared lip gloss reflecting a sort of malevolent aura that Lenalee had never known could be produced by the insanely bubbly female.

"Well then, if you don't _like_ him or anything…" the fellow waitress strutted suggestively towards the doors, her eyes blazing with a fire normally only seen during an overly-naughty round of Truth or Dare. "… I guess you won't mind if I play a little _Kari Kari Chu Chu_ with Allen-sama…"

The bile in Lenalee's stomach had finally come to a rolling boil; with instantaneous activation her Dark Boots had propelled her in front of the devilishly giggling Alice, her eyes glaring like rabid orchid-petal daggers till she could've sworn she had chipped an indent right into the bitchy little gossip-queen's skull. "_Don't_."

"_Ooooooh_, the jealousy unveils itself!"

"I'M NOT JEALOUS!"

The urge to burn off every inch of flesh producing that god awful smile now spread across Alice's face had nearly reached threshold. "Then what's with the raised voice, hun?"

The seconds passing were heavily afflicted with an identity crisis, for it seemed like ages before Lenalee could finally tear her gaze away from the spider-lashed, hot chocolate-eyed Alice. "Well?"

"Excuse me."

Feeling as if her airways had become morbidly obese, as if her blood was mistaking carbon dioxide for oxygen, Lenalee marched off to the nearest exit, a haven of temporary escape _far away_ from the pits of Girl World the only thing propelling her legs into a huffy tantrum. She needed to purge her mind, strip it clean of all girly thoughts and ideas and images till it became totally bulimic of such things. She needed to create a state of psychological malnourishment in order to stop the images from sweetly raping her mind…

The unnerving images of Allen.

* * *

"ROYAL STRAIGHT FLUSH!"

The room quaked in an ear-murdering tremor of cheers and groans as Allen produced his most astounding look of cocky victory yet, the cheating persona within him vivaciously flaunting its true colors as he wallowed in empty victory. Oh, how he so enjoyed ruthlessly stripping people of their money!

"Ladies and gentlemen, the winner is none other than our very own… ALLEN WALKER!" Lavi's words now contaminated the room, his voice fulfilling the vocal role of monotone announcer rather poorly. Still, he seemed to be a big hit with the audience. Particularly the female sector.

Allen couldn't resist letting loose a sadistic chuckle as the losers before him coughed up wads of crisp, thinly sliced money bills. That scent of heavily tattooed paper, the sound of it crinkling into greedy hands, the looks of losers' faces as they watched their precious money children being legally taken from their possession, was all it took to send Allen into a world of sheer poker mania. The insatiable urge to win at all costs, the highly addictive elation experienced when one utters "all in"… Allen had never felt such demonic gratification as he did at those moments. Annexing people's cash into the lands of his own pockets was as comfortable for him as shoving ten sticks of dango in his mouth.

"Excuse me, can we challenge you to a match?"

The innocent inquiry had hastily eroded Allen's poker fantasies, and, before he knew it, he found himself staring rather lamely at an attractive group of teenage girls.

Temptation murdered his decency in negligible time.

"You sure you're up for it ladies? I won't go easy on you just cause you're female."

"Yes, we're ready!"

"Whoa whoa _whoa_, Allen," Lavi was now standing between the two parties. "You need to take a break. We can't let our star poker player lose his touch now, eh?" He turned to face the group of girls, who were shooting Lavi some hard-core doe-eyes and lip pouts. "Ladies, I assure you you _will_ be first on Mr. Walker's list for when he returns." The spiky haired exorcist contracted his best-in-class look of apology, a look that, Allen had noted, was able to indoctrinate any group of females into hypnotically accepting anything that came from his mouth. The girls swooned their approval.

With as sexy of a smile as he could possibly produce Allen escaped the mob of people, his dark poker shades slipping down his nose as he hightailed it to the backroom. He walked in on Krory and Chaoji, both of whom were slavishly sewing away at white tuxedos identical to the ones him and Lavi were wearing. The entire team had decided on a system of rotation between hemming pants and sleeves and playing the role of dealer at the front of the house (with the exception of Allen, who was expected to simply play poker), after discovering that Lavi had screwed up the tux orders and ordered two oversized tuxedos that didn't fit anybody. Yet somehow, it seemed as if Lavi had slyly managed to remain dealer for the majority of the evening, leaving Chaoji and Krory to fix the mistakes of the Bookman's measurement errors for what seemed like eternity.

"Would you like me to get you anything, Allen?" Krory somehow still seemed to be in a decent mood, despite having sewed for five hours straight. "Some water, perhaps? Or maybe even a light snack?"

"It's okay, Krory," he gave him a friendly smile; his stomach was still under heavy hospitalization due to ingesting a year's worth of sugar and artificial "pinkness" at Toxically Moe (despite having left the place over six hours ago), putting him in a rare state of sickening fullness. Instead, he began fumbling about for a container of Tums, the medication having become everyone's best friend after they'd made a hasty exit from the pinkly moe prison cell. His calcium carbonate friend, however, was found in a state of corpse-like hollowness.

"LAVI DID YOU EAT ALL THE TUMS?"

Lavi responded by viciously throwing a mini pack at his whining mouth. "Yo Chaoji, switch out with me will ya?"

Chaoiji flung himself towards the door with tearful relief.

"We are _so_ going to win this thing now!" the apprentice Bookman was fanning himself with a handful of grimy cash. "So long as Allen keeps cheating his way to victory, the girls won't stand a chance!"

Allen was too busy trying to break into the Tums packet's highly protected tinfoil cover to respond.

"You should be so fucking thankful that you have an exceptionally attractive Bookman like me helping you win this thing," Lavi continued. "I mean, the whole poker thing was _my_ idea…"

The Tums suddenly went flying out of their package into an aerial show of psychotic haphazardness. "Well I'm the one that's getting all the money, so technically _I'm_ the most valuable member of this team, Bookman-_to-be_."

"Hey, it's my kick-ass dealing skills and exceptional womanizing talents that even _get_ you your customers, _moyashi_!" With a delighted hiss, Lavi crushed the bright green Tum Allen had been just about to lick off the floor, eliciting a pathetically high-pitched squeal from out of the white-haired exorcist's trembling mouth.

Bars of forced tears striped Allen's cheeks. "Lavi… why… _why_…"

"Guys, we have a problem!" Chaoji had made an unexpected return, interrupting Allen's stellar drama queen performance mid wail.

"CHAOJI DO YOU HAVE ANY TUMS?"

"CHAOJI ALLEN'S ACTING IMMATURE!"

"Guys…" the amateur exorcist was still rather unaccustomed to resolving "friendly family" disputes. "This is serious! We have a customer _demanding_ Allen play a Head's-Up with her immediately!"

Ego suddenly resuming its previous level of narcissistic arrogance, Allen sprang to his feet, a smooth fling of the arm replacing his super sexy poker glasses back in their rightful place. "Then what's the big deal? If this chick wants a one-on-one match so badly, I'm all for it!" He began walking out the door with the strut of a cripplingly-conceited mafia member, an oversized grin of pearly-whites and the suggestive winking of his sunglasses completing the look of raw cockiness.

"B-but Allen-san, the girl asking this—"

"Just shut it and watch, Chaoji."

"BUT ALLEN-SAN—"

The crowd of people awaiting his presence, eagerly awaiting to bask in his poker-star glory and fanatically absorb his intense rays of unrefined skill and superiority… the feeling only further encouraged his ego to maximize the cock factor. A wave of shrill hollers and whistles graced his ears as he cracked his knuckles before the poker table.

"So, which one of you lovely ladies challenged me to a…" he took off his sunglasses, followed by a haughty flip of the hair, "… one-on-one poker match?"

Muffled gossiping erupted as the competitor stepped into view, an overpowering wave of unexpected displeasure nearly threatening to damper Allen's mighty state of egotism. Choosing to ignore the growing atmosphere of discomfort, he observed his adversary head-on, his eyes taking a moment to properly activate their rods and cones in such a lightly lit room; however, Allen's psychological empire of self-centered supremacy came thundering to the ground, exploding into uneasy, nauseating abyss as he blinked vacantly at the glowering female before him, her gothic sea green hair and unfairly sweet smile juxtaposing brilliantly with the venomous aura she was producing.

"L-L-Lenalee!"

Eyes gleaming like frozen balls of poison-choked sakura petals, Lenalee Lee had now locked Allen to the spot with her glare of eternal torture, her black dress making her look like a breathtakingly gothic angel confused with whether or not she was playing around in heaven or hell.

At that moment Allen quite rightly wanted to go lock himself in a room full of Tums for the rest of his life and never come out. His stomach had suddenly gone from weakly functioning to fumbling on the brink of death, all within one roller-coaster ride of a second. Of all the people in the entire fucking world, why did it have to be _her_…

With gentle ferocity Lenalee toppled a castle of perfectly stacked poker chips onto the playing board before her. "Let's play, Allen-kun."

* * *

**A/N: **Holy crap did I really just write that? And I have to admit, it was actually kinda... fun. Even though I _should've_ been studying while I typed it all up... haha oops, guess I'll blame you guys if I fail my final exams. KIDDING!

And dammit, I meant to have Bak show up at Toxically Moe but I totally forgot... I'll have to have him visit next time ^^ Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll try to update ASAP!

**All reads/reviews/faves/watches are EXTREMELY appreciated and greatly loved!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Dear God, I finally completed chapter 2! YAY! *falls off chair and dies* I am so sorry for the wait, i hope it wasn't too long for those of you who kindly waited! But I have good news... upcoming chapters shouldn't run into any delays any time soon, because I am FINALLY finished all my exams for last semester AND this semester I have it SO easy, so I'm really happy about that! :D But ahem, anyways, on with the story...

Terms for this chapter:

Big Blind: mandatory bet made at the beginning of a poker game.

Community Cards: cards dealt face-up and available to all players.

The Flop: first three cards that become a part of the Community cards in poker.

The Turn: 4th card that becomes a part of the Community cards in poker.

The River: 5th and final card that becomes a part of the Community cards in poker.

Oyasumi: good night

Holy hell, all this poker knowledge is frying my brain! (I taught myself specially how to play for this story) And I'm pretty sure that I screwed up the rules for the Head's-Up game played in this chapter, but WHATEVER I am a poker newbie, leave me alone! D':

Enjoy~~~

* * *

The playing board was suddenly covered in poker chips, all of which appeared like poignant little land mines ready to blow Allen's guts out if he dared touch one of them. However, he decided that being blown into bloody smithereens of human confetti was a far better option than becoming trapped in Lenalee's deadlock sergeant glare, a glare that could no doubt terrorize and brutally torture men into doing anything she wanted them to; his overly confident persona was now nothing more than a war casualty at the unforgiving hands of female fury.

At this point, all he could do to defend himself was blow her away with some kind of semi-acceptable excuse. All words containing even slight romanticist credulity flooded Allen's head, composing monologues melted in cheese and soliloquies oozing of sap that could poetically, rhetorically form brilliant lines of apology, lines that, in his mind, would save both his dignity and resurrect Lenalee's positive views of him; in the end, though, only one utterance of idiotic jargon exited his mouth:

"Uhhh…"

He could've sworn Lenalee's eyes glinted. Maliciously.

"What's wrong, _Allen-sama_? Lost your touch already?"

He didn't like how she had called him _sama_. It was like one of those venomous slaps in the face that left behind a chronic feeling of psychological pain rather than any actual physical pain. He just didn't like it.

"You sure you really wanna challenge me?" Allen posed the question with an uncomfortable air of indifference. "I am the_ unbeatable_ poker champ—"

"Oh believe me, Mr. Walker, I have heard the rumours," Lenalee's voice was drenched in sweet disgust as she took a seat opposite Allen. "I am most positive that a fair-playing, completely genuine poker genius such as yourself would provide me with a very memorable game."

There was no way he could cheat on her. No. Fucking. Way.

"Lavi, deal the cards!"

It wasn't like Lenalee was that great of a poker player anyway... right? He didn't even know if she knew _how_ to play...

"Dealer is Allen," Lavi muttered, placing the little white dealer button beside him. The cards were then swiftly passed out, although their presence was unable to divorce Allen and Lenalee's tightly locked gaze of lovingly derisive magnetism. This was no doubt going to be the riskiest game of his life, gambling with the very likes of hellish femininity itself.

"Starting bet for all Head's-Up games is $50.00," Lavi muttered, his eyes glancing at Lenalee as if they too couldn't get over the fact that she was dirtying her hands in the world of gambling.

Allen groped the stack of poker chips before him, petting them as if they were exotic animals meant to be lavishly flaunted with bourgeoisie finesse. "I bet $200.00."

He hadn't even looked at his cards yet. Normally he didn't even _need_ to check them before placing his Big Blind, due to the fact that he'd just shrewdly cheat his way to victory no matter the cards dealt anyways. But, despite the fact that this _was_ his first time placing all trust into the hands of raw, impetuous probability, he felt no inclination to change his ways especially for Lenalee. The riskiest card game she'd probably ever played was Go Fish (and no doubt against a completely biased Komui). This would be a cinch.

"I wager $100.00 then," Lenalee's voice sang, her eyes peeking out from behind her fan of cards like twin orchid-stained sunsets. The blob of spectators around them responded with a hushed cacophony of 'ooooh's.

Lavi quickly proceeded in arranging the Flop, the three cards exhibiting their suit of numeracy with laminated sheen; queen of hearts, three of diamonds, and six of diamonds. The dealer button was transferred to Lenalee.

Almost immediately Allen heard the sliding of poker chips. "$500.00."

At this, the room was filled with a haemorrhage of wild gasping, quickly accompanied by the ghostly lullaby of communal whispering. Lavi gave an impressed whistle. "You sure about that Lenalee? This _is_ Allen you're playing wi—"

"The bet's been made, _Dealer_," Lenalee snapped, shooting Lavi a fleeting look of 'shut-the-fuck-up-right-now' before resting her gaze back on her opponent; clearly, Lavi had become the latest victim of her ruthless wrath.

The audience, meanwhile, fell into a feverish hush, all eyes glued with invisible hunger on Allen as he finally decided to look at his cards.

A three of spades and a six of hearts. Lovely.

He dared himself to sneak a peek at Lenalee; she offered a teensy smile of amiably-disguised rage, one that succeeded in a complete genocide of Allen's soul with hardly a blink. He flickered back to the safety of his cards, their emotionless and neutral appearance suddenly quite comforting.

"I bet $800.00."

The pool of spectators nearly drowned themselves in a monsoon of churning cheers. Allen couldn't help but crack a smile; even playing perfectly fair, Lenalee still stood no chance.

"Chicks and gents, it's time for the Turn to join the party!" Lavi's hollering jeer pierced through the howling storm of overly-spastic voices, and, with an over-the-top holler, the red-headed dealer introduced a queen of clubs into the Community.

Allen had suddenly developed the urge to spout words of considerable profanity; with the dealer button now in his possession, he had no choice but to take action.

"$900.00." An air of nonchalant coolness studded his words; he'd never let Lenalee think he was in a sore position.

Her bet rocketed back at him like a firecracker: $1500.00. Damn, she was getting pretty cocky here…

"Feeling pretty good, are we?" Allen smirked, unable to control his desire to bite into her confident layer of taffy coating and pull it apart till her vulnerability was fully naked. Their eyes exchanged coded glints of malice as Lavi revealed the River card.

A six of clubs.

The glorious bells of victory had already begun their ego-healing orchestration; Allen had a Full House. Normally, such a hand would've been despicable to him, but, considering his competitor, he couldn't have been happier. Hell, within minutes he'd be spoon feeding Lenalee pure, raw defeat!

"Hey, Mr. Dealer," although her inquiry was directed at Lavi, her eyes were locked firmly on Allen, a strange, never before seen look of selfish foreshadow contouring her face as she whispered something into Lavi's ear. Allen was starting to find this devilish side of Lenalee kinda cute…

"Uhh, I don't see a problem with it," Lavi interrupted the lukewarm silence, the uncertainty tainting his eyes making his words seem rather capricious.

"Well then, I'd like to make an offer," Lenalee thrusted her entire palace of poker chips into the middle of the board, her glittering eyes like lilacs dripping in dewdrops of poison. "Not only do I bet all my money, but if I win," her voice reeked of hazardous calculation, "I get _all_ the money your team's made so far!"

Not even the crowd had a response fit for _that_ offer. Allen felt like he was obliviously snuggling a skeleton of barbed wire; Lenalee had somehow managed to make the term 'All In' look like baby food compared to this massive bet. Not bad.

"Fine," Allen intervened casually, his own castle of poker chips shoved to the center of the board. "I match her wager."

A light tremor of excited whispering shook the air into a condition of breathless exhilaration. Lavi took full advantage of the vulnerable state of fervour now antagonizing the room. "Competitors…. reveal your cards!"

Allen hucked his hand onto the board with a cheeky grin. "Full House!"

The crowd became an explosion of glass-threatening shrieks and cheers, chanting Allen's name with fanatic synchronicity.

However, rather than the anticipated look of blatantly shocked defeat, Lenalee was smiling. No, not smiling, _giggling_. She was giggling like a sweet-hearted maniac, like a child twirling in a snowstorm of sugar, like a…. why the_ hell_ was she giggling?

"You're so cute when you act cocky, Allen-kun…"

She placed her cards atop the table with irritating gentleness, an act that quite rightly spanked the audience silent in a matter of two seconds flat.

Lenalee had a Four of a Kind.

A Four

of a fucking

Kind.

The world had suddenly become a sloppy, half-done-drying watercolour painting, one that was moving and animated and made Allen feel rather dizzy and coated his throat in the defeated flavour of vomit. He had been…

He'd been…

Defeated.

Allen Walker, the reigning poker champion who hadn't lost a match in five years… had been irrefutably defeated. By Lenalee Lee.

He had officially lost all feeling in his body. Actually, he wasn't even _inside_ of his body at this point. His body had become a forgotten relic of the past, a hollow shell of untameable trounce, a mummified reminder of cold, grisly defeat…

The last thing he could remember was Lenalee's killer smile, drizzling him in honeyed mockery as he vainly tried to dissociate the traumatizing event from implanting into his long-term memory…

"What the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

The phrase hit Allen like a strategically timed, perfectly aimed grenade ambush. He hadn't seen Lavi _this _pissed in quite some time.

"Do you have any idea how much money we'd made? And now, just like that, the girls have it! THE GIRLS, ALLEN!" He punched the wall for needless effect. "Why didn't you just cheat like you always do? Christ, I wouldn't have agreed to Lenalee's fucking bet in the first place if I'd 'ave known you'd act all retarded about it!"

Allen felt his vocal cords adopt a fake bout of arthritis; he didn't want to answer that question. It was a question he had asked himself before, during and after the whole god damn poker match, yet it had remained unanswered. It was the type of question that desperately wanted to be rhetorical, but, deep down, knew there was a linguistically tangible answer. But still…

"What, is it cause you _like_ her or something? That's why, isn't it?"

_Was_ that why he hadn't cheated? Just looking into her deep lavender eyes, he had developed the feeling, that inner kick of the intuition, that cheating on Lenalee would've really hurt her, in a way that wasn't quite comprehendible to Allen but understood all the same. Cheating against complete strangers and in order to pay off debts was a completely different category of cheating than cheating against… against a _friend_. It would've been like taking Lenalee's heart, already frail with disappointment, and letting it drip-dry of all its blood, all its fuel, all its meaning. He couldn't just piss around with her emotions so carelessly, using them as leverage in his bet against their relationship. He just wouldn't allow himself to compromise her… her _anything_.

"_You_ fucking like her, so you just jump on board with her and ditch us, right?"

It was up to Allen to protect Lenalee, from the thorns of society and the uncharted isolation lying within the shadows, those hazy silhouettes that stalked every individual into a state of unsuspecting, sometimes even unfelt paranoia. And, after seeing the contempt, the raw ionic contempt enveloping her face, gruelling her eyes into little balls of half-masked disappointment…

"Are you even listening Allen?"

… this huge wave of yearning, of _desire_, began sizzling his insides, searing his hands and his feet, every ounce of his skin and his mind till they were all coated in acid, hot, viscous acid, acid that propelled him to speak, to defend, to fight for Lenalee's behalf no matter if the whole world had suddenly deemed her the enemy and sought to eliminate her. The acid wouldn't stop, it just ate away at his heart, corroded its chambers into mushy tubes and gave his blood a hostile identity that scoured everything it licked and slicked over with its saline liquidity. This cripplingly intense desire to suddenly protect Lenalee at all costs, to win back her trust and her happiness and her approval, to once again see her face smile at him with that blissful benevolence he had so come to love, to crave, to _obsess_ over…

"ALLEN!"

Was this…

"Yoohoo, earth to Allen Walker!"

… love?

"Oi, Moyashi-chan!"

All confusion was suddenly extirpated from his head as a violent surge of pain arrested his body, squeezing his organs and twisting his spine in a way that made the vocal chords silently scream for mercy, made the tear ducts weep invisible droplets of agony, left all bodily functions in a forced, fitful state of horrific hibernation. His body was being devoured from the inside out.

"E-Excuse… m-me…"

Allen barely had the strength to force himself to his feet and head for the nearest bathroom, the horrendous sensation of wanting to vomit up every object inside him immobilizing his limbs from moving in a normal manner. He staggered away from Lavi and the others, clutching his stomach in a vain attempt to soothe the slicing spurts of pain skewering his insides.

His surroundings soon became a whirling canvas of indefinableness, though he did manage to recognize a mirror echoing back a visual replication of his pitiful complexion. His body though, it was acting as if it was self-destructing, as if every organ was suddenly suffering a severe bout of amnesia and couldn't remember what to do or how to act. The muscles that were supposed to be holding him up were shrivelling into useless coils of protein, causing his knees to buckle and his body to come crashing to the ground with agonizing flaccidity. His skin, it was tightening against his bones till large sections of it felt like it was snapping apart, like rows and rows of taut string being clipped with a knife, and his muscles, they were contracting rhythmically to their own unheard tune, nudging Allen atop the cold, lonely floor with gelatinous staccato jerks, until, ever so rapidly, an ear-murdering 'pop' commanded eternal, unbroken silence. Everything – every little thing – had stopped.

Eyes barely able to open, Allen felt as if he could see every sound wave swirling and reverberating throughout the air, colliding with each other and bouncing off walls and solid objects with such fascinating flexibility. They were rather pretty, how they spiralled and twirled like veins suspended in a transparent fluid, how they created intricate spirographs that shivered in place for a few seconds before skating away like clouds unsure of where they were going. The world had become a chrome-coated, cacophonous mess… a place of foreign familiarity…

_Is it love, Allen?_

The phrase resonated through his head, cracking his skull with fading monotony and freakish strength till Allen was forced to clasp his head in sheer pain. He toppled across the floor, flinging himself violently from side to side as he tried to remove the voice from inside his head.

_Do you really love that cute, adorable friend of yours, Allen?_

"Shut up…." His skin began to feel foreign, corrosive. In fact his entire body felt like it had been invaded, overtaken, disconnected from his soul and controlled by a source of power completely inaccessible to him. It was… it was happening again…

_Lenalee Lee… right?_

"Shut up…"

_She's cute._

"Shut up…"

_I might just have to introduce myself sometime…_

"SHUT UP!"

With a jolt reality came crashing back, soaking Allen in its realism and authenticity, choking him in a rush of oxygen and the auditory presence of tile and mirror and bathroom stalls...

So he had made it to the bathroom after all. Its features surrounded him, enclosed him in its tangible security as he shakily got to his feet. He felt as if he was wearing something that didn't quite fit right, as if the inside of his skin had been fingered by grimy hands; his body only felt vaguely familiar.

Slowly, carefully, he hobbled towards the exit, the need to see real faces and hear real voices propelling him to move faster than his body was allowing at that moment. His senses were just beginning to awaken from their coma, just starting to get readjusted to their familiar environment that had so abruptly been turned unfamiliar and alien. As he pushed open the door, the world he had grown accustomed to greeted him with a colourful burst.

The comforting sight of his friends—Lavi, Krory, and Chaoji – alive and breathing, speaking and emoting, conversing and cognizing… it provided Allen with the stability he so desperately needed right then, to ground him and remind him of the world's realness.

That 'stability', however, was quickly replaced with annoyance as Lavi greeted Allen with a completely unconcerned, incredibly devious grin.

"What's your problem now?" Allen asked dryly, his eyes turning into slits of uncertainty.

"Nothing at all, my wonderful little Moyashi!" Apparently his former level of fury had died down considerably. "Just deciding on some final details for our plan…"

"What plan?" Allen hadn't a clue what he was raving about. Nor did he particularly want to know.

"Oh, just a little plan Chaoji, Kro-chan and I discussed earlier. Involving you. And our stolen money."

"It wasn't stolen!"

"Wait, we're actually gonna _use_ that plan?" Chaoji's voice had suddenly turned quite alarmed at the prospect of being involved in a dodgy plan he had yet to fully agree on.

"Indeed we are, Chaoji," Lavi's expression was _far_ too smug. "By tomorrow at this time, Allen'll be working his buns off at Toxically Moe, all for the sake of regaining the money he so selfishly lost for his beloved team."

Mental barricades blocked the words from registering in Allen's head. "_What_?"

"You're gonna be a maid!"

"Wait, you can't just decide this—"

"I've already discussed it with Lou Fa, she's all for it!" His smile couldn't have been a better symbol of sabotage. "You start first thing tomorrow!"

"LAVI!" Anger had become an inaccurate way of describing Allen's feelings towards the man he had _thought_ was his best friend. Apparently Bookmen were well trained in the area of super sneaky, super bitch-ass sabotage too…

"Have fun being a maid, Allen-chan! Or should I be calling you Allena…"

Lavi's shirt collar was snatched up into Allen's clutch within two livid seconds. "I am _not_ working at that… that _murder shack_, if my life depended on it!" Thoughts of frilly pink were already threatening to overtake his mind, rob him poor of all masculinity till he could barely remember what it was like to be masculine at all. Holy fuck…

"Well unfortunately, your life _does_ depend on it, because," Lavi gave him a 'friendly' flick on the nose. "We'll make your life a living hell if you don't get us back our hard earned cash. Got it?"

"BUT I WAS THE ONE WHO WON IT ALL!"

Lavi placed a mocking finger gently atop his lips, shushing him silent. "It'll all be okay Moyashi! I pinky promise!"

"Fuck off Lavi!"

"Better get a good night sleep before your big maid debut!"

"GO TO HELL!"

"Oyasumi, Allena-chan!"

"Dammit Lavi, SHUT UP!"

After throwing the nearest object he could secure his hands on at the betraying ass of an exorcist, Allen bade the rest of his "team" good night and stalked out the door, fully pissed off and in severe need of some deep-fried, greasy food.

"Link, I highly suggest you don't follow me," Allen muttered with monotone misery. He was standing glumly outside of Toxically Moe, the inspector rapidly swerving his pen about his notepad in the annoying way that pens so fascinatingly scratch paper with their static ink rivers; however, the scratching was managing to put Allen's nerves on the cliff tops of insanity. It wasn't that he was_ afraid_ of working at the maid café, oh no. It was merely the _thought_ of being overtaken, even minutely, by feminine charm and influence that was absolutely drop-dead terrifying to him.

"Walker, I'm about as happy about this unfortunate predicament as you are," Link stated, his pen clicking to sleep. "But as one matures in life they must learn to compensate for their poor actions, regardless of whether the ego appreciates it or not."

"What the hell does that have to do with you watching me?"

"You are now five minutes late, Walker."

Sometimes, the urge to stab Link with his stupid little pen and watch him turn purple from lead poisoning was almost too tempting to withstand.

Nonetheless, Allen made a grandiose entrance into the lively maid café, somehow discovering an all new reserve of manly confidence deep within him as he braced himself for everything pink and sparkly.

His charade was welcomed by a massively gawking Bak, who just happened to be seated in a fuzzy pink chair to the right of the entrance.

"WALKER?"

"BAK-SAN?"

A procession of blubbering inquiries were ricocheted between the two much like a drunken ping-pong match, until finally, a moment went by where both men had suddenly comprehended the gravity of their situation; being caught in a maid café wasn't exactly an 'acceptable' predicament to place one's reputation in. Bak's face was turning every shade of red known to mankind as he digested this societal fact.

"I am here purely for business reasons," Bak flippantly remarked, a sturdy matter-of-fact look spread across his face as he nodded non-stop. Allen couldn't help but notice his hand anxiously swirling his drinking straw around until a full-on hot pink maelstrom had generated deep within his mysterious pink drink's depths.

"Right…" He knew all too well that he was _obviously_ there to try and see Lenalee in a maid outfit. After all, it didn't take a genius to piece together Bak's easy-to-read looks of jumpy embarrassment and the coincidental fact that Lenalee worked there to figure out that that was his genuine intention. What Allen really couldn't wrap his head around was the whole 'stigma' associated with the male entering a maid café thing.

It seemed as if every man that stepped foot into the café was overcome with a sort of stuttering, stupefying illness, one that left him low on wit and high on horniness. God, even _Link_ appeared to become more outwardly flustered once inside Toxically Moe's interior. Maybe it was infused with some kind of highly toxic gas that slowly but effectively fucked male brains into stuttering balls of neurologic goop. That would explain the nauseatingly putrid smell of flowers and rainbows the workers deemed 'aromatherapy'…

"Yoohoo, Walker-sama!"

Oh fuck… now he was hearing _female_ voices talking to him. Wonderful.

"Walker-sama, over here over here!"

With an unreasonably hard jab from Link, Allen was redirected towards Alice, the waitress who had served them just the other day. A strange feeling that was neither joy nor panic took hold of his body, making him feel mildly bi-polar and rather on edge.

"Walker-sama, its so supertastically great to see you again!" Alice was beaming with supermodel acuity. "You as well Link-sama! Are you working with us too now?"

"No."

"_Awww_, but that would've been so perfectly sparkletastic!" Link was being mercilessly shot down by the female pout weapon. "Then we could've done each other's _hair_!"

"You can do Walker's hair instead."

"Oh sweetness!" Allen's ribs were effectively crushed into a fine powder of calcium as Alice embraced him with overly ecstatic fangirl strength. "Your snow white hair is just so super cutesy!"

Allen was quite positive the world was about to end. Very quickly.

"Um, excuse me Alice," Link interrupted the moment of one-sided bliss. "What exactly will Walker be doing at Toxically Moe?"

"Oh, he'll be serving with all of us of course!"

Link's pen cackled atop his notepad.

"Oh right, I almost forgot…" Alice whipped around frantically, ink black hair spraying Allen in the face. She skipped back almost immediately with a carefully wrapped, carefully sealed package. "This is for you!"

Words of gratitude had no intentions of escaping Allen's mouth.

"You can go put it on in that room over there!" She pointed to a door just behind them. Allen felt a nerve snap.

"Uh, thanks… Alice…"the words came habitually as Allen shuffled himself around, random blurbs of Alice interrogating Link in her "super-fantastical" language slowly growing fainter and fainter as he tensely approached the door. It glowered before him rather intimidatingly.

"Right, okay." He took a deep, calming breath (although he quickly regretted it as his nose became invaded with the sourly off-putting smell of everything pink and moe); bravely, or perhaps with idiotic composure, he twisted open the door handle and welcomed himself right inside the room, immediately swerving around and closing the door shut before anyone could question him otherwise. He clicked the lock down for extra security.

He faced the door's dreary wooden complexion with a glazed expression, his body unwilling to unwrap the package in his hands and put on what Allen deep down inside knew was something that would forever scar his identity as an androgynously functioning man. Yet somehow he managed to peel his gaze away from the imaginary safety of the door, expecting to set eyes upon a fantastically pink room showered in revolting shimmer and cute fluffy objects of varying shapes and sizes.

What he found was not the image of a room. In fact, it wasn't even pink. Or sparkly. Or inanimate.

Staring back at Allen Walker, with extremely uncomfortable proximity, was a completely uncovered, exceptionally nude, perfectly pale female ass. Complete. With. Thong. A thong shoved way way _way_ up the crack, to the point where it made Allen feel uncomfortable on top of his already indefinably off-the-charts discomfort. And oh, the thong even had cute little pearls at the top, forming a sort of triangle shape that led the eyes quite nicely on their tour down the divide. How nice.

Wait, _what_?

Allen was officially paralyzed to the spot, all the crazy glue in the world unable to hold him in place better than the sight before him; it was like black magic at its dirty finest. Despite every ounce of self-dignity and every deeply ingrained speck of well-honed etiquette screaming at him, whipping him with his very veins and arteries to stop bloody staring and turn the fuck around and RUN… Allen remained staring, fully fixated, _enchanted_ by the sight of something so off-limits and socially prohibited bent right before him. The blood was gushing to his head, filling him with fantastical dizziness and eddies of psychotic pleasure that left him pulsing in very private places. He felt his mouth uncontrollably lull open.

The temporary dissociation, however, was brought to a careening standstill as the female straightened up, nothing but a baby-pink lace bra covering her chest and a pair of matching lace garters twined around her thighs, their buckles limply waving across her smooth silky skin, as if welcoming Allen to take a good, long look. His gaze was then drawn, with what seemed like magnetic instinct, towards a pair of blinking lilac eyes, eyes so consumed in corroded innocence, so prolifically petrified at the prospect of having been invaded, so inertly locked in a snapshot of eternal, inerasable horror… Allen felt incredibly empty of any dignity at all.

He knew those eyes… that hair… that quivering set of lips.

He knew them _way_ to well. Better than he ever wished he did at that moment.

The lingerie-clad female before him was none other than Lenalee Lee.

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**A/N:** Wow, ya, I wasn't planning on leaving off there, but thats just how things worked out. And I gotta say, I thoroughly enjoyed writing about Allen's struggle with Neah being in his head, that always has fascinated me so I'm really glad I got the opportunity to play around with it in my writing. But, as always, I hope you were able to enjoy this chapter, and I thank you in advance for reading it! Reads/faves/reviews/watches are always welcome and greatly loved!

and honestly, if I messed up the poker game... I'M REALLY SORRY! I'm still learning...

Quick special thanks to the following indvidiuals: EdwardElricAllenWalker, TheRiverAlchemist, klawnella, comet77, and all those who were kind enough to fave and/or watch this story. I love you all! *glomps*


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Sorry for the wait everyone! I feel really bad, but, between dance, finishing up watching Full Metal Alchemist, and reading the latest DGM chapter (which has left me both very confused AND severely deprived of AllenxLenalee scenes), I haven't exactly had all the time I need to write! So GOMENASAI! *bows repetitively* But, I am finally pleased to present to you the third chapter! Thank Kami-sama...

ENJOY! Tanoshinde kudasai! *hides in corner with manga*

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The world, it was no longer harnessed by the secure hands of gravity, no longer safely tucked within its jolly jumper of centrifugal force, no longer circumnavigating, hand in hand, with its guardian of gravitational supervision in a normal lucid fashion, but rather, in a drunken, psychotically inclined sprint of elliptically-challenged madness. Insanity, it would seem, had become an all new physical force, very much so capable of dismantling the earth from its axis of reason and toppling it into a black hole of hypnotizingly black, black, blackness.

That's all Lenalee's head was filled with, at least: blackness. Cold… bottomless… blackness; a blackness that consumed and coated your senses in stifling black saliva, forcing them to adopt an identity of crushing phobia and lose all recollection of their capabilities and roles as somatic poets till all you could feel, taste, hear, see, smell was black numbness. She had never felt so blaringly exposed in her life. Ever.

The fact that Allen looked like a bug-eyed bush baby having his eyes poked out from behind wasn't helping much either.

"Le… na… lee…" Allen blurted the words robotically, as if his mind had been completely taken over by the powers of heavily provoked testosterone and images of god knows what level erotica. He displayed the typical symptoms of a male suffering temporary brain dysfunction due to hotness overload, yet somehow, it failed to garner any sympathy from Lenalee.

Thoughtlessly, or perhaps more with thought that adamantly believed it was empty and thoughtless, her Dark Boots shot her directly towards Allen, whom she, with the vivacious speed any shockingly flustered woman is capable of generating, grabbed by the ear and shoved into the nearest source of confinement available to her: a closet. And thus, with a dramatic thrust capable of making bedrock shiver, the doors to Allen's 'temporary concentration camp' were blatantly slammed shut.

Lenalee's mind, now having semi-alleviated the male stressor, felt like a fried egg. A rubbery one, with one of those yolks that bleeds all over the whites and quite simply makes you feel like a toddler chew toy (in a weird, psychological way). Basically, her insides felt like a cold, scrambled mess.

The need to warm the icy awkwardness solidifying the atmosphere was rather pressing.

"Allen-kun… don't.. say.. anything."

"B-But, Lenale—"

"ANYTHING."

An acceptable air of silence emanated from the closet; this suggested that either a) Allen had passed out due to lack of usable oxygen in his tiny closet confinement, or b) the words had actually fully registered in his stupid little brain fast enough to stop him from slitting his own throat any further. As entertaining as the first option was, the second option seemed rather likely.

Eventually, Lenalee resuscitated enough of her logicality to grab hold of her maid uniform, her scarcely clad body becoming highly aware of its substantial nudity as she shook out her frilly moe dress, its apron and ribbons flapping giddily. Hesitantly (due to the fact that her muscles were still suffering from severe PSTD), she began slipping on her lace-choked bloomers.

"Hey… Lenalee?" Allen's voice had taken on a rather muffled gruffness due to the closet's confines. "Can I say something?"

An awkward hesitance clambered over Lenalee as she placed a foot through her uniform; she had no intentions of answering him. She couldn't be sure what taboo thoughts would leak from her mouth if she dared open it…

"I'm sorry."

She nearly face-planted as her foot caught on the edge of her skirt.

"I'm really, really sorry."

She prayed he'd stop talking. Before the inclination to snip his vocal cords in half became too unbearable.

"For everything."

_Shut up…_

"I, uh… I'm an idiot."

_Just shut up…_

"I _know_ I'm an idiot, actually, when it comes to feelings a-and girls and—" his words trailed off, either due to the fact that he didn't know what he was even saying, or because he was about to say something he hadn't intended on making audibly public. Lenalee, despite convincing herself it was due to the former, was intuitively aware that it was probably the latter.

"Allen-kun…" his name fell from her mouth with a metallic flatness, as if every syllable bore an iron weight. She didn't know what she wanted to tell him. Just saying his name… she liked saying his name… it felt like speaking words of hot chocolate, always so soothingly warm and fuzzily sweet…

"If you're gonna say you hate me than I, uh, completely understand, I mean—"

"Allen-kun."

Enslaved seconds lugged by. Brutally enslaved. It almost felt like they were waiting for Lenalee to finish off her thoughts, to publicize them so that they could return to normal time, but her voice shied away from the opportunity, the hazard of her self-volatility too great.

"Allen-kun…" again, her voice stopped itself, committed an act of instantaneous, intuitive suicide. Why couldn't she just fucking speak, like any other normal human being? It was like saying his name trapped her in some kind of bubble, a bubble that robbed her of all oxygen and made her vocal chords forget how to be vocal chords and caused her eyes to drown in their own stinging saliva—

"It's okay, Lenalee," even through the stupid sounding muffle of the closet, Lenalee could detect that comforting tone of gentle understanding, that tone dripping with genuine acceptance. It was always so subtle, yet, when comprehending his words at a more subconscious level, the potency of his intentions was incredibly overwhelming. Allen just had the ability to create that perfect sense of half-masked, half-recognizable reassurance, the kind that could verbally comfort you whenever you wanted to crucify yourself with words of poisonous self-mutilation. It was like an invisible embrace, one that you never ever wanted to end.

"It's okay."

"No," Lenalee breathed, her hands desperately trying to grip the zipper at the back of her dress. "No its not. Allen-kun, how can it be okay? You just had to be such an… an _idiot_, so how… _ugh_, fucking zipper…"

She felt as if she were talking to herself rather than a person stuffed in a closet. A person who, despite having heartlessly cheated people of their money in the most egotistical way possible and _despite_ having walked in on her at an exceptionally undesirable time, was still yanking at her heart strings with excessive colonialism.

"Why did you have to do that? _Why_ did you have to put me through all that _shit_ and make me feel all sick and confused and… and… ugh, for Christ's sake… I just… I just…"

The words plopped from her mouth like thick globs of vomit; she could feel herself gagging on her own feelings, spitting and spluttering up clobs of emotions that had previously been slinking about secretively through her veins, clotting her thoughts into jumbled jungles of indefinable abyss. Why? Why did she continue to suffer this feeling of… of…

"Lenalee."

… A feeling that wasn't anger, but felt so god damn similar. Yet at the same time, completely dissimilar. It was simply a feeling of raw immaturity, a feeling that had been drawn out of her prematurely, had yet to fully develop into something grander and more tacitly tangible, but, despite all that, had still been brought into the world in one shocking bout of unexpectedly convulsive labour, making her mind a paroxysmal mess and her mouth a source of sick sick nonsense—

She was completely caught off guard as she felt her zipper magically fasten shut; whipping around, even despite knowing she'd be sick with regret for doing so, Lenalee felt her eyes snap into a far too comfortable position: staring into Allen Walker's pale, star shine eyes. She just stood there, blinking, staring, drinking up his milkshake gaze, freely letting him become intoxicated in her own ocular lilac potion for a period of time that felt both too long and not nearly long enough. But before she allowed herself to completely drown in his soft metal orbs, she pushed him away with a rough shove to the chest, her face a feverish flush.

"H-How did you…" her voice trembled terribly. "You're supposed to be in the closet, Allen-kun!"

A look of intense internal chastisement thundered across Allen's face before he quickly covered his eyes with his hands, a streak of pastel red emblazoning his cheeks. He was so incredibly easy to read; Lenalee could've closed her eyes and still perfectly sensed his feelings, an internal battle between consideration and culpability. Despite his considerate side winning, the culpable side was doing a fine job of whipping him guilty. But just seeing Allen writhing about in guilt, fighting off an invasion of feelings he couldn't quite handle all at once… the whole act was so stupid, so ridiculously hilarious… it was_ cute_. Allen Walker was actually acting, quite admittedly, cute, in his own stupid, oblivious way, making his performance of hysterically acute trepidation almost enough to win Lenalee's forgiveness. Almost.

"I SWEAR I DIDN'T SEE A THING LENALEE I JUST HEARD YOU STRUGGLING WITH THE ZIPPER SO I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE OKAY TO JUST COME OUT AND QUICKLY HELP YOU—"

A strange wave of giggles came from Lenalee, giggles that were born from both the sight of a hysterically embarrassed Allen Walker and from the remnants of fury she still had yet to unleash at him. Somehow, when put altogether during a situation of ridiculous hilarity, the emotional combo made for some pretty lethal giggling.

"Um, Lenalee, are you…"

Tear droplets crystallizing the points of her eyes, Lenalee heaved for air, the sudden rush of it making her light-headed and unsophisticatedly giddy. "Allen-kun, why can't I _ever_ just stay mad at you?"

Hands still barricading his eyes from any form of unrighteous peeping, his mouth twisted into an expression that suggested he had taken the rhetorical question quite literally. "Uhh…"

"Don't even think about answering that," Lenalee breathed, her voice still weak from the giggling attack. "But I mean, for God's sake, you saw me in my underwear and…" her eyes adopted a sweet sparkle. "And here I am _laughing_ at you!" She placed her hands atop Allen's, carefully relieving them of their guard job and offering him a shy smile. "Why?"

That's right… why _was_ she acting like this? Here stood a teenage man who had unfairly racked people of their money and walked in on her while she was changing, yet she stood here _fighting_ the urge to hug him. Rather tightly. _Passionately_, even. All she really wanted to do was enwrap her arms around his chest, envelope herself atop him till their skin melded into a soft, tender kiss, melt lusciously atop his firm, wonderfully toned body…

Wait, why was she thinking of… of his… in such a physical… _detailed_…. manner….

Dear God.

"Um, excuse… me… s-second…" Lenalee could barely form the words amidst the estrogenic hurricane now ripping apart her insides and terrorizing her mind into a swooning, petrified havoc. A delighted state of chaos, one that felt forbidden and terrifyingly unknown and was full of a lusty desire so strong, it produced its own category of nausea was encapsulating her senses, spanking her into a childish mode of femininity she hadn't ever experienced, that she had thought she had developmentally skipped over and absently graduated from long, long ago. The only thing she could do was run from the unrunnable, and she did so with wild panic.

Desperately, with a squeamish, alien sort of alarm, Lenalee darted from out of the room, her Dark Boots instinctively helping direct her away from the alleged 'source' of her unfathomable problems and towards a place of temporary relief from said Source's obscuring presence. However, once beyond the door her dissent was quickly blocked by Alice, who was chattering away with Link as she French-braided the inspector's hair, completely oblivious to her surroundings (and the fact that she was supposed to be working).

Manoeuvring herself strategically around the pair, Lenalee was able to avoid the trap of eternal gossip exchange with swift accuracy, her Dark Boots doing a superior job of guiding her away from the trouble before they had even realized she'd zoomed by. With hasty force she went crashing through the nearest bathroom door, her hair flailing across her face as she came to a skidding halt atop the smooth tile floor.

Chest convulsing in airless ecstasy, Lenalee locked the door behind her, leaned against the door's frame, and let her back slide feebly down its exterior; she had made it to safety.

"Allen Walker…" she huffed, her poofy maid skirt parachuting around her as her butt touched the floor. "Allen… Walker…"

Her hands slid atop her face, cowering her vision into a state of dim blackness. All these feelings of self-identity, self-confidence, self-perception, self-appearance, self… self _anything_… they were all curdling deep within her stomach, diffusing throughout her body and filling her with a type of doubt that left her breathless and enthralled in a game of scrupulous 'what-if' roleplay. All Lenalee could feel was a numbing colloid of developmentally delayed feelings, overtaking her and transporting her to an area far beyond her personal comfort zone, to a place that tampered with the very furnishings of fantasy and replaced them with something far more intriguing yet just as horrifying. Her entire body felt like a juxtaposing psychosocial tug-of-war match, on the verge of turning violently engaging.

She considered, ever so briefly, going to Komui for advice. She might not have even known what kind of advice she was searching for, or even how exactly to ask for it, but whenever she had faced a problem in the past, it had always been Komui who had guided her, reacquainted her with the light in life. Yet somehow, the thought of informing Komui of these… these _garish_ feelings, so choked in uncertainty and ambiguity and newfound awareness of things girls don't usually like to be explicitly slapped in the face with…

Somehow, the thought of informing Komui that she had been viewed by Allen Walker in nothing but bra and panties, and that she, on top of this groundbreaking fact, wasn't even furiously enraged at him for acting so idiotically impulsive, seemed like a bad idea. A really, _really_ bad idea.

Loneliness had never seemed so helplessly secluded.

"Allen Walker…" just the mentioning of his name made her freeze up and melt into a gooey ball of musing ludicrousness. "_Why_ are you such a god damn pain in the ass?"

The answer to her hidden question poked rather intrusively at the borders of her subconscious; the yolk to her perfectly cracked world… had finally broken.

Today was a landmark in Allen Walker's history. Because today, with unprecedented vigour, Allen had discovered that Cross' training hadn't been as cruel and heartless and incredibly degrading as he had always thought it to be.

In fact, his training now seemed like one of those pleasant cups of afternoon tea, served with those dainty little tea cookies that make you feel all snootishly refined and pompously classy. The ones with pretty little sugar crystals all over them too.

Because, back in the day, Allen Walker had never… EVER… been trained to say…

… with just the right inflection of the voice…

… and with just the right accent of arousing sympathy…

"Ok-kaerinasaim-mase, g-g-goshujin… s-sama."

The room around him was muggy with disapproval.

"Allen-sama," Alice began, her voice taking on an all-new, mega freaky tone of malice, "Try… it… _again_."

Training to become an exorcist was _nothing_ compared to training to become a maid of exceptional moe moe qualities. He had learned that the minute Alice had violently clasped his face, freakish wand of black gunk in hand, and attempted to plaster his eyelashes in what she had called 'mascara'. And after that, fascinating tubes and jars of items named lip gloss, eye shadow, and blush had also been aimed at his face with prickly brushes and sponges of all sizes and textures. During that time, Allen had actually started to _miss_ Cross Marian, proving that the world must have been flipped over and turned inside out for him to even possibly experience such impossibly plausible feelings; he was scared fucking shitless.

"Okaerin-nasaim-ma… se, uhh…"

"STOP."

Sparkly pink notebook thrown to the ground, Alice was suddenly on a storming rampage towards Link, who, for reasons Allen could not in the slightest bit hope to one day fathom, had become Alice's 'go-to guy' when it came to judging Allen's performance in becoming an acceptable maid. Actually, Alice had been clinging rather creepily to Link ever since Allen had stumbled out of the 'Changing Room of Doom' (named for the events that had taken place in it), in a way that the inspector had even more creepily seemed to become not only accustomed to, but, quite frankly, _comfortable_ with. He forced himself to stop thinking about it, for the sake of keeping his sanity ever so slightly intact. Link just wasn't the kind of guy youever pictured having a _girlfriend_…

Allen came crashing back to reality with the help of an electric-pink feather pen assaulting him in the face.

"How do you expect to _ever _earn back your money," Alice hissed, her eyes like chocolatey needles ready to inject sugary inoculations of death. "When you can't even welcome the god damn GUESTS?"

Unable to comprehend an answer of semi-decency, Allen decidedly kept his mouth shut. Or rather, hanging open in a dumbfounded O shape that he believed looked shut.

"WELL?"

"Uhh…"

"LINKY-KINS!"

Before Allen could even protect his eyes from the corrosive sight he just _knew_ was coming, Alice had jumped on top of Link's lap, a glossy pout making her lips look like heavily lacquered tubes of bubblegum as she submerged herself into the role of spoiled-rotten drama queen. "Linky-kins, Allen-sama's being _SO_ uncooperative!"

What was _really_ being uncooperative was Allen's body, which was currently partaking in a spastic rampage of uncontrollable turmoil upon hearing the name 'Linky-kins' uttered one too many times…

"He's acting like a bratty little toddler, and you know how much I _hate_ bratty little toddlers Linky-kins…"

Allen's last spec of sanity evaporated. "STOP BLOODY TORTURING ME!" He was gasping atop his knees in a matter of seconds, banging his head against the floor in an incredibly hopeless attempt to try and physical purge the image now branded in his memory before it dubbed itself as 'long-term'. The sickening display of sugary-sweet, lovey-dovey chitchat had now gone far beyond the definition of 'innocent'; now, it had simply turned into a method of highly effective torture. "JUST STOP!"

"Oh please," Alice's voice sounded rather distant after all the head-banging. "This is the _easy _part of your training."

"I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT DAMMIT!" He couldn't even bare to look.

"Stop being a baby and go change already! It'll help you get into character."

"NO! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"

"Now now Allen-sama, we can be cooperative about this—"

"WHERE THE FUCK IS LAVI?"

"—or we can be difficult—"

"I WANT TO STRANGLE HIM!"

An overly worn-out sigh emanated from where he imagined Alice sat. On Link. She sounded somewhat annoyed, like the way you just know that a babysitter hates kids when they yap at you in that cheerily fake façade of absolute kiddy adoration. "Allen-sama, I am like seriously _this close_ to losing it with you."

_She_ was close to losing it?

"So, while me and Linky-kins cool down for a moment, we'd like you to go try on your maid uniform, kaykay?"

Every muscle and every tendon and every ligament that aided every tendon were telling Allen,_ screaming _at him, to _run_. Run the fuck away while he still had a chance of escaping. The fighter mode within him, that tough display put on by males during times of testosterone-threatening circumstances, was instantly awakened as he summoned up all his strength, all his bravery, every freaking ounce of—

"Okay that's it, where the_ hell_ is Lola-chan?"

"Eh?" Allen had never known a 'Lola-chan' to walk the face of the earth before. Until, with rather dumb sluggishness, it hit him, and it hit him with a terrifying jolt that left the psyche with an aching case of whiplash; Lola-chan had to be… _couldn't_ be…

"Lou Fa, you mean?"

"Yeah, Lola-chan. She'll be more than willing to help you change—"

That was all Allen needed to hear to get him zooming into the Change Room of Doom for the second time that day, for his second attempt at changing into his 'mystery uniform of unknown moe proportions'. Simply the thought of Lou Fa… in a full on, super frilly, super… super _push_-uppy, super low-dipping criss-crossed high-cut _maid outfit_… was enough to give Allen a mild seizure. The bad kind of seizures, that caused irreversible brain damage. Ever since he had appeared at Asian branch, Lou Fa had been hovering around him like a lost puppy, offering to make his room up for him and to do every teensy little task that required even the most minuscule amount of feminine capability (AKA laundry and cleaning), not to mention sending him numerous deliveries of food and freshly baked goods on a 24/7 basis. Not that he minded the latter. It's just that, put all together, the entire act was starting to seem rather creepy. Actually, it seemed more like a strategic way of stalking people, without looking like one was actually _stalking_. Those damn Asian branchers…

Chaining all thoughts and images of Lou Fa to the walls of cerebral oblivion, Allen scanned the room for any signs of life, ready at any moment to jump into a tight little ball and hide his face from the world till the coast was clear. But, upon finding no breathing femme fatales lurking within the vicinity, he was free to locate the package containing his uniform.

It sat just a little ways away, festering on the ground like a smoke bomb that, once activated, would blow-up and release noxious fumes of estrogenic poison, fumes that, when inhaled, would immediately begin their job of remodelling the male ego into a helplessly androgynous being. Allen was suddenly very tempted to exorcise the damn package, allowing the pitiful female evil oozing inside of it to be cleansed of all its wretchedness in one serene stab. Luckily, the stupidity of such an action actually registered in his brain before he had a chance to activate his Innocence.

"Mana," Allen sighed, a melodramatic frown shivering across his face. "Forgive me."

With ridiculous caution, he unravelled the bundle, his fingers numbly dissecting the pieces from within the wrap like cheap plastic utensils incapable of picking up food. He pulled out a pair of frilly bloomers, stretching them out a few times for rather unnecessary effect. Two circular bands suddenly plopped to the ground, strange metallic clamps attached to them courtesy of another strip of elastic fabric. What the bloody fuck…

Smashing his forehead against the floor, Allen let loose a pitiable, self-mourning cry of anguish. For he knew… _oh_, he knew… that his life as a man, internally speaking… was coming to a god awful, untimely end.

The mirror… it was lying. Lenalee knew it was lying. It was showing her this image… an image of her face, one that was hardly recognizable yet all at once far too familiar. Her cheeks were laced in tears, thickly crusted in their shiny icing, heavily scarred by their stiff ghost trails that bound the face in a sort of invisible, cakey mask. They just kept coiling and slithering down, down, down her face, down, down, down, unravelling and twirling further and further down, further and further… down… down…

Down.

Almost like long strands of hair. Salty, shape shifting, liquid hair.

Lenalee missed her hair. She missed how it would pet her back, and how it would snuggle up into a silky mess all around her as she slept the night away. She missed how it would so gracefully glide through the fingers of the wind, how it would perform a spectacular contortionist show as she somersaulted midair during Innocence invocation, and how it would so naively try and imitate a mirror by brilliantly reflecting light from off its smooth, smooth surface. She missed it. She suddenly looked very empty without it, as she stared back at the girl in the mirror. She looked strange. She looked…

Incomplete. A part of her was completely, undeniably missing. With the death of her long, beloved hair had also come the death of her emotional barrier, the intangible, invisible camouflage that had concealed her true emotions, had barricaded them from rearing their heads and going on a psychotic, uncontrollable rampage in the midst of real-world chaos. It was like her hair had acted as a physical, metaphorical symbol of that psychological shield, keeping all her emotions intact and away from the unrestricted view of the criticizing public eye. It allowed her to smile during those times when she physically couldn't, to laugh when her friends were around and to save them from being burdened by things completely unrelated to them. It helped her to imprison her lingering feelings of helplessness, inferiority, and pain in a way that subconsciously isolated them from the rest of her feelings, like a deserted little island floating about in the depths of internal somatic hell; solitary and alone. So long as her hair swished by her side, her emotions would forever be imprisoned inside her, her hair capturing them like nightmares tangled in a dream catcher.

It had always been blessed with riveting beauty, her hair. In fact, Lenalee had always thought it to be her personal veil of beauty, something that would always ensure her own beauty so long as she always covered her face in its silky screen. This belief of hers formed at such a young age, she couldn't even recall when she had first completely forgotten how to care about her looks, having left it all up to her hair for so long. Sure, she had been told she shared her hair's exquisite beauty, but to her, her own physical beauty was an empty sort of beauty, like a sunset missing its color. Her hair's beauty, on the other hand, had been described as being mesmerizingly painful to the eye, as if aesthetically flaunting the ominous prediction that the artificial peace could not last forever, that sooner or later, it would crash and burn and eat away at the flesh in ways that weren't visibly noticeable until it was too late. Her hair, it would seem, had acted as her sole connection to the world of femininity.

But now… Lenalee's hair was gone. It had died, gone to Heaven. Sure, it was growing back, but that growth couldn't replace_ her_ hair, even if it was bred from the direct code of _her_ genes and came right out of _her_ scalp. It still didn't replace that forever missing fragment of her identity, forever lost to the hands of dissociation. It was like losing her one and only female friend.

The definition of friend was becoming distorted now too. What was a friend? Wasn't Allen supposed to be her friend? So was Lavi, and so was Kanda, and Miranda, and Krory. So was everyone at the Order, really. They were her indisputable family, the people that she fought for and that provided her with a reason to develop reasons. Yet why… why, ever, _ever_ so suddenly… was her family becoming this malformed definition? Why was the family portrait, so carefully framed and hung in her head, just a big, blurry blob of splatters and rips and gashes? Why, when she smiled up at her big family portrait, did she suddenly feel a different sort of sympathy towards Allen than she did for Lavi or for Kanda? Why did she feel her eyes linger, ever so subtly, on Allen's face longer than on anyone else's?

It was happening all the time now, this distortion in feeling and familiar perception. The very definition of familiarity was becoming unfamiliar. When Lenalee got mad at Lavi, for instance, it would be a fleeting anger, one that tried its absolute hardest to be serious yet always ended up turning into a sort of trivial thing soon after. Basically, her anger seemed to develop into a causeless, pointless escapade, which made it unnecessary to continue on with. But when it came to Allen…

Getting mad at Allen was different. It was like, when she got mad at him, somewhere inside her body would be this searing, slicing pang, as if her anger recoiled back and began to cannibalistically eat away at her own flesh and feelings. Getting mad at Allen was like getting mad at herself, yet, as much as she wanted to stop being mad at him, she couldn't stop, because something deeper would always hold onto the reminiscing feeling that had elicited the anger in the first place, causing her to constantly live in this void of never-ending rewind, replaying it over and over and over. Getting mad at Allen drained her of all sense and composure. She fucking hated it. She hated it. But…

All he had to do was smile. Shoot her with that stupid, stupid smile, that one that was so genuine, so overflowing with sympathy, it was actually _un_sympathetic, a facial lie. It killed Lenalee every time. Every fucking time.

A shaky horizon of tears lined each eye as Lenalee wiped her cheeks with the back of her wrists. She found it rather funny how, despite sopping up all the tears tightening atop her skin, her eyes continued to produce more, like some kind of stupid, ironic, over-used joke that nobody found funny anymore but still laughed at anyways. She didn't like her hair anymore. In fact, she hated it. And she was almost completely positive that, no matter what people said, they didn't like it either. She could just tell, the way people would react with that natural, uncontrollably automatic gawk upon first seeing her, and then, as they gained power over their own explicit reactions, would settle into a fake façade of ignorant approval. Lenalee was far too perceptive of others people's emotions to _not_ notice this kind of shit. Hell, for almost her entire childhood she'd just sat and observed, motionless and invisible, in a whirling, vibrantly tangible world, a world where the senses could actually sense and emotions could actually be read like a manual, personalized to every single individual depending on their temperament and reactions. Lenalee was good at that, yet…

Yet she couldn't even decipher her own right now. The manual to her emotions was currently written in some foreign language, some unknown code, as if they didn't want her to unveil them all by herself.

By herself... for how long had she kept all those feelings, all that emotional awareness, all that strife and all that internal warring to her…

"Allen-kun."

She didn't know why she'd just said that. She didn't even know why her body had automatically, involuntarily told her to whisper his name. It had provided such a fleeting sensation of calmness, enunciating each and every syllable with the gentle potency of verbal medication, yet almost instantly she'd broken out into a fit of insatiable calamity at the act, unintentionally activating her Dark Boots and kicking full-force at the bathroom stall door immediately behind her. She breathed deeply, the squeaky, pained cries of the stall-door fading into eventual audio oblivion.

She had put a dent in it. Just a tiny one. But really, it wasn't her fault. It was Allen's. It was Allen's fault, for being so god damn… so god damn…

With a tremulous sigh, Lenalee pivoted around and exited the bathroom, the door swinging wildly behind her as she reacquainted herself with the bustling world outside.

"Allen-sama, I'll count to three!"

"NOOOO!" Allen squealed as he threw his entire body against the door, hoping desperately, futilely that his weight would be enough to stop female desire from flinging it open. A pandemic of sweat began sprouting atop his back.

"One…"

"Alice stop!"

"Two…"

"I'm begging you, don't!" He _could not_ be seen like this. It was so beyond wrong it made the very definition of the word question its own meaning. Allen had _become_ the definition of wrong. And all he could think about was how extremely uncomfortable it was to have bloomers wedged up his ass…

"THREE!"

"ALICE NO—"

With an unexpected jolt the door exploded open, its hinges screaming bloody murder as Allen's weight was thrown from its frame; with a less than manly shriek, he plopped to the ground in an unceremonious display of frill and lace.

This would make the _fourth_ time he'd fallen like an idiot that day. He'd fallen on his face while trying to get on a god damn pair of fishnet stockings. He'd fallen on his shoulder while trying to zip up the back to his lacy maid uniform. And, lastly, he'd fallen square on his ass while attempting to fasten the frilly headband across his head (at approximately try 34 out of 50 in getting it to stay), due to his genius idea of walking backwards _and_ trying to tie hair accessories at the same time (resulting in crashing against a wall). Basically, Allen had never felt like such a klutzy freak in all his life. And, to top it off, he was now trapped within an _insanely_ uncomfortable maid dress. He could already see the world rolling in laughter.

Finally sensing the uncanny silence, Allen peeked up from his disgraceful position, blush searing his face in medium rare embarrassment.

Alice was staring at him. Actually no, more like _gaping_ at him. Her eyes were like a baby deer that had just seen its first wolf pack. No, that wasn't it either; like a baby deer that had just seen its first massive patch of luscious green grass. Mouth hanging open, face glazed over in an expression of creepy female infatuation forming faster than a pre-pubescent crush, Alice appeared to be experiencing an out-of-body experience without actually leaving her body. And, to top it all off… she was… she was _twitching_. In a way that suggested she might blow-up if the sight of mind-blowing girly fantasy was not disposed of within five seconds.

All Allen could do was cower into a ball, bracing himself for Hurricane Fangirl.

"EEEEEWHHHHHHHHHA YOU LOOK SO INCREDIBLY CUTE LIKE OH MY GOD ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE NOT REALLY A GIRL EYAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I JUST WANNA GLOMP YOU TILL YOU DIE KYAHHHHH CAN I ADOPT YOU PLEASE LIKE OH MY GOD!"

It was official. Alice had begun speaking in complete Fangirl.

She skipped up to Allen with a sort of sugar-fuelled, high-pitched shriek, as if she was afraid to touch him yet at the same time wanted nothing more than to huggle his guts out. "OH MY GOD LINKY-KINS! LINKY-KINS! YOU HAVE_ GOT_ TO SEE THIS!" She had now securely gripped his arm and pulled him to his feet with surprising ease, making Allen feel queasy and on the verge of self-piteous tears.

Before he knew it, he was being presented to Link as if he were a life-sized doll.

"Isn't he just ADORABLE?"

Allen never thought he'd see the day when Link giggled, but it happened. Right then. A part of his soul had died along with it.

"The color scheme works quite nicely with your hair color, Walker."

Allen created a mental note to beat the shit out of Link later. It would be top priority. Right after he finished killing Lavi.

"Okay okay okay, everyone, it's time for…" Alice began making a ridiculous drumming sound against the wall. "… Alice's Hardcore Crash Course in Moe Moe Maidness!"

Allen's muscles transmuted to jelly. "_What_?"

"Training silly!" She giggled the words as if he were ten years younger than her, beeping his nose in the process. "But it'll have to be quick, 'cause your first customers are already waiting!"

"C-C-_Customers_?"

"Now, repeat after me!" Alice shouted loudly above his cracking voice. "Okaerinasaimase, goshujin-sama!"

He watched, completely helpless, as his soul hovered right out of his body, baggage and all; even his _soul _had decided to disown him. "O-Okaerinasai… mase… g-goshujin… sama."

"Now, copy my movements."

Allen could literally see a stampede of pink glitter flock towards Alice as she pirouetted into a tight-legged bend, hands on her knees and squeezing against her chest in a way that made it bulge rather liberally from out of her bra (which was also in plain sight). He was quite sure the training would murder him before he even got to serving the customers. Thank God.

"Well don't just _gawk,_ DO IT!"

"B-B-But…" his mind scrambled to remember any words of English. "I don't have anything to squeeze!"

"Oh, well that's a good point," the bubbly waitress actually entered a state of calm thoughtfulness for a moment before madly flouncing off to another room, leaving Allen all alone with Link, who was trying way too hard to try and look like he wasn't about to burst out laughing. He felt his eyebrow begin to twitch, ever so slightly.

"TA-DA!" Alice returned much too quickly, a flurry of toilet paper cradled in her arms. "Don't you worry, I'm a pro at this!"

Allen had lost his ability to worry quite a long time ago.

"Just leave it to me…"

"Wait, what are you… GAHHH!" Allen yelped hysterically as Alice's hands, along with a healthy serving of toilet paper, went snaking down his top. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?"

"I'm turning you into an A."

No matter how violently he struggled and flipped and flailed, the woman _would not_ let go. She had firmly stuck her hand down his top, and was just as harshly arranging the toilet paper atop his chest in a way that made him look…

He shot Link, his pathetic last-resort of saving grace, an incredibly distressed, abused look for help, even managing to make his lip tremble and his eyes swim in tears. But all Link did was frenetically jot something down on his notepad. Heartless bastard…

"There, that's better!" Alice beamed with a grin that suggested she believed herself to be the female incarnation of Picasso. "Now you'll be able to seduce the customers!"

"I will do no such thing."

"Now, despite you failing every aspect of my crash course," she gave his butt a sharp smack. "It's time to intoxicate your customers with some moe moe!"

He didn't have the voice to speak. All he could think about was diving into a pit of Level 1 akumas and never coming back out.

"Go get em, Allena-chan!"

"Allena…?"

With a wink, Alice shoved Allen out into the restaurant portion of the café, where he came to a stumbling halt in front of a table filled with four painfully familiar faces.

* * *

**A/N: **As always, all reviews/faves/watches are always welcome and greatly appreciated!

But lol, I gotta admit, I really do enjoy poking fun at Link. IT'S JUST TOO MUCH FUN! *evil grin plz* And I ended up writing the part with Lenalee looking at herself in the mirror in the bathroom when I was having a really hard time with my anxiety... and... stuff... so ya, that part's really deeply connected to me. But pssh, it baffles me how I continue to make my chapters longer and longer...

And I have some sugary sweet Valentine plans for this series coming up! Because I couldn't just let Valentine's Day slip past without paying my respects to my all time FAVE couple of all time, ne? ;) Stay tuned!

Additional thanks goes out to: shinigamitales, TriforceandSheikahArts, comet77, EdwardElricAllenWalker, BootsOfDespair, and TheRiverAlchemist. Plus all those wonderful individuals who continue to read, fave, watch, and support this series in any other way! You guys are what keep me writing! *heart*


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Holy crap, I'm still alive! YAY! I am SO SORRY, for a number of reasons. First of all, I'm very sorry that this took so long to get out. However, due to the fact that I had to travel to Japan, am battling with some seriously depressing personal issues, and have a ballet exam and loads of other shit coming up, it's pretty safe to say that I have not had all the time in the world to complete my writing! So, please excuse my tardiness T^T

Also, I apologize for not posting anything on Valentine's Day, I seriously feel terrible about that. I was in Japan on Valentine's Day, so my mind was all fucked over (from jet lag) and I hardly ever knew what day it was, so, when I found out that it was Valentine's and I had no way to write and super cute, super fluffy AllenxLenalee... I... I nearly died. Actually, I did die. WHAT KIND OF A FAN AM I? But I did write this really sappy piece of shit on dA, I posted it in a journal (sinceI felt so terrible about it), but I don't reccomend you read that. But I still feel bad, I mean, its the first time since I've begun writing fanfiction that I haven't written anything for V-Day! WAHHH!

So, anyways, if this story is not as well-written as before, gomenasai. Really. But please, please do enjoy, if that is at all possible... wahhh...

* * *

Allen was quite certain that, if he had had his eyes gouged out by a spoon and refilled with wasabi-soaked jalapeno peppers, he would've been in less pain than he was in right now.

Because right now, he was twitching like a half-dead centipede beneath the smothering, grinding glares of Lavi, Bookman, Shifu, and Rikei. He could almost hear the ticker within all four of them, on the verge of detonating into a gut-blowing, manner-spanking explosion, one which would no doubt buffoon every customers' face into an expression of thoroughly appalled unawareness. At that moment, glomping Kanda while under the influence of sugar seemed more appealing than serving these 'four' an assortment of artificial looking pink digestibles.

And then, Lavi whistled. He just had to. One of those shrill, hot-saucy whistles of lusty approval, usually used to signify to every audible person that this particular piece of eye candy was worthy of hopping into bed with whichever man had been lame enough to twittle the tune. But, although this was, under any normal circumstances, quite normal behaviour for a playboy such as Lavi, Allen knew far too well that it hadn't been meant as a perverted compliment towards his ass.

His friends, however, seemed to find it quite hilarious; the entire table immediately erupted into a gale of laughter, waterworks, fist-pounding and all. It was like a line-up of laughing dominos, really, how, once one spewed the first spurts of laughter, the others all instantly followed suit, a contagious string of immaturity flinging them all into a chaotic canon of gut-splitting hyena laughter that even the most highly-trained animal trainer couldn't crack a whip at. But that was just typical guy behaviour.

Yet, despite this sympathetic masculine awareness, Allen couldn't help but feel completely alienated from the likes of his fellow male counterparts; taking a hollow, highly perturbed, on-the-verge-of-turning-into-a-warrior-cry breath, he held his chin high as he stared down at the four people he had decided he never wanted to see again for the rest of his life. Ever. The laughter eventually regressed to a mildly tolerable level of snickering.

"Okaerinasaimase… go… go…" his dignity would not allow him to say the words.

"What's that, Allena-chan?" Lavi shouted at a highly inappropriate volume, effectively causing the entire restaurant to become aware of Allen's cross-dressing performance. "I missed that."

The urge to finger Lavi with all the manly immaturity he could produce had reached a critical point. "Okaerinasaimase, goshujin-sama!" How he had managed to produce a super bubbly, fantastically high-pitched voice capable of generating visible sparkles was a mystery he never hoped to crack. Lavi, upon being gunned down by the unexpectedly girl power-charged rebuttal, had adopted a look of pure gobsmack.

"Uhh…" Allen was realizing just a little too late that he had no idea what to say or do next. "I'll go, um, get you some cups of poison, my wonderful goshujin-sama… !"

He left the group of men behind with a stumble, his maid skirt flying up behind him with disturbing sass; almost immediately, the room turned into an auditory mosh pit of monstrous, boomingly over-the-top hollering. Again. Apparently the other customers hadn't been satisfied enough with the state of deafness achieved from the previous outburst.

But before he even had the chance to run for cover, Alice had shoved a tray of frothing pink drinks in his hand.

"Uhh…" his mouth remained openly sucking in air as he attempted to distinguish whether the drinks were really, truly edible. "What exactly are these… liquid… cups of… pink... stuff?"

"Well its Toxically Moe's specialty beverage, of course," she dismissed him as if it were the most blatantly well-known fact the world had ever known. "Its chalk full of fuwa fuwa goodness and has just a hint of moe toxicity!"

A sparkler went off in his head, fizzling into an idea of vengeful deliciousness. "Moe toxicity, you say?"

"The most potent, ovary-energizing toxicity you'll ever come across!"

Sounded like a glass full of suicide to Allen. However, that did not by any means stop him from swiftly (or rather, with an awkward sort of flounce) serving up the mystery concoctions to his oh so wonderful table. In fact, he had discovered an unhealthy eagerness burning within him at the prospect of seeing a bug-eyed Lavi rolling about the floor with pink foam spewing from his mouth after he drank what he hoped to be cups of carcinogenic goodness. Or at least, that's what he _hoped_ the moe poison could accomplish…

"Here's your drinks," he grumbled darkly, plunking each cup onto the table with the very deliberate intention of making each one spill half its contents. Lavi was the first to comment on his extremely unmoe-like serving skills.

"Oi, Allena-chan, your cutesy little hands spilled my drink everywhere."

Allen produced his most puke-worthy smile. "Oh, how incredibly reckless of me! I'll just have to clean that right up now, won't I…"

Viciously grabbing hold of Lavi's shirt, he began using it to wipe up the bog of bubbling pink liquid now tinting the table. "There you go goshujin-sama, brand spankin' new!"

The look Lavi presented him with could've given Kanda a run for his money.

"So, is there anything else I can do for you, goshujin-sama?" the words cut Allen's throat like shards of superheated sugar.

"Actually, there's something that's been bugging me…" the bookman's eye had attained that familiar spark of wily emerald mischief. "Lean in, would ya?"

"Do you seriously think I'm thatstupid, Lavi?"

"No seriously, you're gonna love this," he gestured for him to come closer, and, although every fibre of his intuition was face-palming at the action, he felt himself fall victim to Lavi's demand.

Regret didn't even have a chance to contaminate his conscience before Lavi had shoved his hand down Allen's top, scrounging around for the source of Allen's newborn 'chest'; he had never felt so utterly exposed in his life.

Which is why Allen decided now would be a brilliant time to test out the benefits that came with his new gender. Forcing his eyes to transform into pools of gooey doe-eyed alarm, he sucked back a large chunk of air as he readied his voice to transform into a female rape alarm.

"HELP SOMEBODY HELP, I'M BEING SEXUALLY HARRASSED, HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME!"

Amidst having his chest searched, his vocal chords working at maximum capability, and toilet paper flung into his face, the surprise at actually having a pair of hands wrap around him and powerfully pull him away from Lavi's perverted finger search party was extremely riveting; in a very wrong, wrong way. Actually, being saved so swiftly was about ten times freakier than actually having Lavi abuse his image in front of the entire restaurant's gawking eyes (which at the moment, seemed hungrier than their stomachs). What the fuck had he done?

"Are you okay, Miss?"

Oh shit; he knew that voice. A strand of neurons right within his memory bank were whipping him in the skull, blatantly informing him of the wonderful news with mighty cracks of nausea. With proactive regret he glanced up at his knight in shining armour, only to lock eyes with a genuinely concerned, fully immersed in hero-mode, Bak.

A sound that could only be described as a gender-confused squeal came from Allen's mouth; Bak actually thought... had actually... thought... he was a girl. Allen Walker had actually been confused for a girl. The world was more fucked up than he had ever imagined it to me. How naïve he had been before, thinking that people actually had some goodness within them. His soul gave an ashamed sigh of frustration as he wriggled about pitiably.

"Do I know you from somewhere, Miss?" the Asian branch chief was now looking at him with an expression that quite simply made Allen want to turn into an invisible puddle of tasteless, shapeless somatic juice. But hey, at least it hadn't been _Fou _who'd seen him...

"Um…" right then, Allen had three options available; he either a) could transform into Crowned Clown and strangle the life right out of Bak until he was certain he had suffered irreversible amnesia, b) could continue to scream and fuss like an ecstatically depressed fangirl in the hopes of getting Lavi arrested, or c) he could ever so simply say…

"... good-bye."

The verbal hit and run was performed with the brilliance of an uncomfortably androgynous individual, his voice cracking as it tried to continue the feminine charade against the will of his dignity. But honestly, right then, Allen couldn't give a shit how ridiculous he looked; he just wanted to go die. Alone. In a shower, where he could fully perform his wall-hitting, model pouting, bent over and crippled 'To be, or not to be' act while remaining shirtless (just in case a female walked in) and trying not to think about how much better it would've looked in the rain. The emo shower had never seemed like such a refreshing option.

Yet as these gothic ideas progressed with self-loathing definition through Allen's head he found himself subconsciously wriggling loose from Bak's grip, until finally, once he had adjusted his focus to be solely dedicated to the task of removing himself from the public eye, he popped right out of Bak's embrace, like a party cracker blown open by some idiot before the New Year's countdown even finishes. Scrambling towards the door, his feet fried the floor into sizzling wooden bacon strips as they identified the distant safety of the 'Staff Only' area. He didn't care if Alice was waiting for him with a sparkly pink frying pan, didn't care if Link was ready to jot down his incompetence at being a maid of sickening moe ability, all he cared about was getting through that damn door and…

"Wait, what's your nam—"

Bak was rudely intercepted by the slamming of the door; Allen had successfully escaped the pit of identity assassinating customers. He nearly slid down its wooden frame in shaky, hallelujah-soundtracked relief.

Cutting through the relief, however, was the one thing that had been bulging in his mind, in big, twinkling bubble letters that looked about ready to explode, since the second he had slipped on his pantyhose and garters; it rolled off his tongue with haughty fatigue.

"Alice, I qui—"

"ALLENA-CHAN YOU CAN'T BE IN HERE RIGHT NOW GET OUT!"

The blunt potency of the rejection bred his thoughts into a mis-weaved quilt of flimsy cognitive threads, those of which were quite incapable of cushioning any thoughts as he attempted to figure out why he couldn't possibly be allowed in the 'Staff Only' area. And then he saw Lenalee, sitting in a chair, looking like she both desperately wanted to hide yet at the same time wanted someone to see and comfort her. It almost looked like… wait, was she _crying_?

Apparently his ability to leisurely think over commands was not at an acceptable speed for Alice, because she was now stalking towards him with a look of predatorial disgust (something quite common to the female species), and looked about ready to sample his insides.

"What don't you understand about GET OUT?"

"But I just want—"

"GET THE FUCK OUT!"

He was forcefully thrown out of the room with the most unsympathetic act of womanly consent he had ever had the delight of experiencing.

And, as the door screamed shut behind him, he figured his welcome back to hell wasn't going to be any more compassionate as he was re-welcomed by Lavi's smirking face.

"Okay honey, just let it allll out."

Lenalee began to choke on her own sniffles; holding back tears had never felt like such a mortifying experience. Especially in front of someone like Alice. Not that she was a mean girl or anything (or at least, purposefully mean), just that, when you looked at Alice, the intuition just knew, with that little wriggle of well-concealed disquiet, that she was the type of girl who knew everybody's secrets, secrets ranging from trivial fluff to large-scale terrorist plots on the self-esteem. Alice just had that look, that presence about her, that suggested she knew it all. And that, specifically, was why Lenalee wasn't too keen on 'spilling her innermost thoughts' to her fellow co-worker, for the sake of her reputation and her peace of mind.

Although the latter, currently speaking, seemed to be on the verge of extinction...

"Aww Lena-chan, don't cry!"

"I'm not crying!" she turned her head away from Alice, tears forming unstable squiggles down her face.

"Do you honestly think I didn't notice?" she was now kneeling before her, the reek of super expensive, aromatically flirtatious perfume assaulting Lenalee's nose with dense aromatic viscosity. "I could tell the second you stepped out of that bathroom honey," she heaved herself gracefully atop the counter, legs crossed and bloomers liberally visible. "Now spill, or I'll start guessing."

The fear of having her deepest, darkest feelings of feigned foreignness put into words for her… it was too much. Much much too much. Especially with someone as erratic as Alice being the MC. Lenalee was left with no other choice but to tiptoe past the borders of her comfort zone and reveal some of her troubles to the girl now sitting across from her.

"I just... I just..." she could feel the words all huddled up in her throat, petrified and shivering as they saw the light outside her mouth, forming an invisible clot that didn't want to budge for fear of having their true identities revealed. Talking to someone about her private emotional battles, about the stupid little spats her conscience and rationality would get into over trivial bits of life, seemed like such a taboo thing. Especially to another girl. The lethal levels of awkwardness in doing that would be so toxic to the confidence. She had just never been built to leak her insecurities and traumas like that. Lenalee's body had been well-insulated against sharing that kind of stuff. For as long as she dared remember, she had always trained her body to patch away the invisible hurts and pains whenever they threatened to sabotage the air's chaste honesty, due to the fact that no suitable ears had ever really been around to listen to them anyways. Now, it was just habitual. It was autonomic.

But was… was it really okay?... to another… girl…

Come to think of it, she never actually _had_ revealed her innermost feelings to another girl before. The opportunity to had simply never appeared in her life, forcing Lenalee to cap everything off and put on a strained grin amidst her male comrades, even during the peak season of her inner emotional storms. This experience was kind of... kind of freaky.

"I just don't know what to do anymore."

Instead of spastically shooting her a response of urgent inquiry further into the topic (which was the response Lenalee had anticipated), Lenalee was instead taken off-guard as Alice's arms wrapped around her, pulling her into a comforting, soft embrace that was so full of understanding, so rich in sensationalistic reassurance, that she actually felt her muscles fall into a peaceful state of relaxation, like one of those shaky breaths that come after partaking in an unforeseen emotional catharsis. The little seedling of anxiety that had been rotting within her had suddenly begun to bloom into a blossom of relief.

Her arms wrapped around Alice, free from thoughts' propagandizing influence.

"I know how scary it can be, Lena-chan."

Her words punctured deep into her emotional insulation.

"Falling in love with a friend kinda feels like having the entire Milky Way spill its milk on you."

"Wait, what?"All bodily functions suddenly seemed to reverse. "I-I never said that!"

"Maybe not verbally, but your face did," Alice assured, her voice still emoting a sort of relatable understanding. "Honey, I've been through it all, trust me."

Firing back a phrase of defence somehow seemed pointless.

"And besides, you have your period right now, so of course everything's gonna seem like it's been painted in poison."

Lenalee nearly felt her uterus disintegrate at the statement. How the _hell_ did she...

"How did you know I had my period?" Even just saying the word 'period' made her feel like she had blood blotches splattered across her ass. Panic-stricken, she stood up, eyes searching frightfully for even the faintest stain of red.

"Chill out, would you?" Alice was now back on her feet, forcefully reacquainting Lenalee's ass with the chair. "You don't have any marks, I swear."

She felt her muscles sigh.

"I'm just an expert on these kinda things, so I can totally tell when a girl's ragging."

"R-Ragging?" Lenalee's voice graduated an octave.

"My god, was it really that bad?"

"Was what that bad?"

"Your acceptance!"

"My acceptance?"

"Your acceptance into womanhood!"

"MY WHAT?"

Manicured hands placed atop her shoulders, Alice's face was now aligned directly across from Lenalee's, so as to create the perfect artificial mirror image. "Tell me everything. Right from the start."

Lenalee suddenly felt as if she had had scalding hot tea pumped down her throat. With a syringe. Yet, once it had sloshed down, as she was bracing herself to have the slimy flesh covering her throat fried into crispy sheets of tempura tissue… she had found it to feel kinda soothing. "So you mean... when I..."

The wink Alice gave her sealed the deal.

"Well, I guess it was three years ago..."

_The saying 'Death was knocking at your door' had never seemed so terrifyingly real. Lenalee had always visualized some sort of akuma like creature as being Death. She had vowed to her big brother that one day, she would exorcise him with her very own two heels. That way, Death would never ever bother them again._

_But to think that Death..._

_To think that Death had finally come knocking at her door. _Her_ door. Lenalee Lee's god damn door. Fuck, look at how pathetically young she still was. It couldn't be the end already. It just couldn't. She'd have rather died on the battlefield, amidst a graveyard of gaseous akuma carcasses, than by sitting on the toilet with her underwear pulled halfway down her legs. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fucking fair._

_She had abandoned the imaginative idea of Death being a living, breathing creature a few years back, but to have him staring at her—literally, _staring_— right in the face, waving at her with this sort of mocking, cacophonous silence that sent the ears into a screaming fit of muted, blood vessel popping terror... _

_There he was, bright red and wet on her panties. A big, bloody blob of muck. The seal to her death sentence. On her underwear. There was no other explanation for it. She was surely, unstoppably, without exception, dying._

"_N... Nii-san..." Lenalee's voice was a shaky grovel, an audible manifestation of her intense petrification at the sticky red goop now coating her panties and oozing out of her vagina like heated toothpaste. "Nii-san..."She hadn't been ready for this. She hadn't been ready to die._

_Although, actually, now that she thought about it, Death _had_ given her hints about his arrival. _

_It had started about a week ago._

_Lenalee had unexpectedly been overcome with excruciatingly brutal, stabbing pangs, pangs that would delicately resonate deep within her gut and spread their seething wealth before fizzling into a more manageable ache. The moment she had first experienced one of these pangs she had immediately keeled over and clutched at her waist, thoughts of her stomach trying to eat itself terrorizing her mind into a fitful state of over-stimulated fantasy as she bit her mouth for reasonless support. The people around her had all flocked to her aid, treating her ears to words of concern and care, but Lenalee had managed to contract enough calmness to laugh it off as being a stubbed toe. However, she had later realized, as the pains continued to make love with her nerve endings, that they weren't originating from her stomach at all, but in fact, were coming from somewhere even deeper, somewhere even more taboo and delicate to think and speak about..._

_She had decided that her ovaries were somehow tearing apart. Maybe they had contracted some sort of disease, a disease where they'd swell to a size that'd make a balloon envious, and they were slowly, ever ever so slowly, ripping apart into bits of muscle-y confetti. It seemed so ludicrous, yet how else was she supposed to explain such debilitating stabs of pain? They'd just go on and on, like a tangible moan that droned on and on and on and never varied in pitch or intensity or melodrama, it just went on and on... _

_But that hadn't been the only hint. Something else unexplainable had happened, an event that had made Lenalee cry herself to sleep and then, after waking up from a sore back, caused her to throw her pillow at the wall in a fit of sudden unsubstantiated rage, complete with hot tears and trivial rhetorical nuisances that just wouldn't leave her alone, it all just hit her and slapped her until the stapling of her ovaries almost felt like a physical form of relief from the bipolar identity crisis of her emotions. Jesus, why had she been such a bitch? Why why _why_? _

_She… she had yelled at Komui. The reason for their disagreement seemed so bitingly stupid, it had made Lenalee even angrier at herself, but that hadn't stopped her at the time from performing a full-on soap opera performance in the dining hall, at the Order, in front of everyone. _

_He had told her she should try wearing something that wasn't always black. Black. Her favourite color. Even if it wasn't a color, Lenalee still chose to devote herself to it, because she could relate to its faraway loneliness and felt ashamed that other people merely saw it as a shade rather than for the complex color that it really was, so full of deeply buried secrets and inconceivable mysteries. But to think that her kind-hearted, ever-conscious Nii-san had even had the _nerve_ to try and suggest to her to wear something other than black... it was like the racist of all racist accusations against a color. Ever. And so, after going off on a rambling, scarily uncharacteristic tangent about how black made her look good and that obviously if she didn't look good he should keep it to himself and that the entire world must've thought she looked like shit if he thought she looked like shit in black and that she'd never show her face again if that was the case, Lenalee had declared her 'never talking to him again' line, and stalked out of the dining hall with every eye gagging on the sight._

_So really, after all that, she should've known she was dying. All along, Death had been sending her such kind little hints, itty bitty little presents that had all collaborated in making her life a living hell until finally, the grand finale had arrived. And it couldn't have made a more shocking entrance. Death sure was a sneaky little bastard. Her lower back seemed to groan in agreement. In fact it seemed as if all her emotions were currently connected to some kind of physical trigger-switch, ensuring that, whenever she was pissed off (which seemed to be far too often, and with such pointless reason), she'd be sure to have a double-dose of ovary-searing pain at the same time. How crafty, Death was. Very fucking crafty indeed._

_And now, she had to break the news to her brother. _

_She had already begun configuring a variety of ways to try and break the news to Komui, ranging from just outright telling him about her unexplainable symptoms to wrapping up her soiled undies in a pretty little box, tying a nice explanatory note to it, and dropping it off on his desk. And yet, no matter what she came up with, every way was certain to entail Komui clinging to her like an embarrassing little leech and proclaiming to the (non-listening) world that he'd never let go of her, that he would sacrifice his own life in place of Lenalee's or that he would die right along with her if the heavens were to insist. At the moment, such an act of over-the-top 'brotherly love' seemed more deathly than her actual illness._

_In the end though, Lenalee had decided to purposefully forget about the illness, and to simply go on living her life as if it wasn't even there. She had found clever ways to combat the many signs of her dying body, like stuffing toilet paper in her panties to stop the blood from soiling her skirts, or drinking a spicy ginger tea mixture that Jerri had insisted would alleviate her cramping when she had told him she'd been running around 'just a little too much' that day. But, despite battling her death with such confident counter-measures, Lenalee just couldn't quite ignore the insatiable inner knowledge that she was dying. Quite frankly, she was beyond terrified about it. She fought hard, though, to tame her anxiety._

_However, after a week or so, the vaginal bleeding stopped. The poisonous mood swings stopped. The vicious cramping cycles, they stopped too. Everything had suddenly just stopped. She had actually started to think she had been cured, that somehow, someway, her body had miraculously fixed her ovaries and soothed their tattered, over-stretched muscle, and that the leaking blood vessel squirting blobs of gooey blood into her underwear had been astoundingly patched up. Perhaps she really had been fully repaired. She was back to normal. The black clothes that she had once loved no longer looked terrible on her anymore. Her underwear, they no longer had to be filled with flimsy layers of toilet paper anymore. She was going to be okay!_

_And then, four months later, it happened again._

_Lenalee was dying. Again. She hadn't been fixed. She hadn't been cured. She was back to dying, as, once again, she fingered the viscous red fluid shimmering atop her panties. Having blood dripping out of your vagina with heavy, slimy globbiness couldn't be a very healthy sign. She was undeniably dying. _

_She was... dying… dying… _

"I really thought I was dying," Lenalee whispered, her own voice almost too embarrassed to repeat the words, to relive the unnecessary terror.

"So, how did you find out you _weren't_ actually dying?"

"The nurse broke the news to me," the answers were just pouring out now, sliding joyously off her tongue as they fought to be heard by understanding ears. "I had been put in the hospital after a pretty rough mission, and, after they had given me a thorough examination, the nurse came over and offered me a new pair of underwear." She felt her cheeks crinkle up slightly. "After that, the truth about my 'illness' was revealed."

"And did you ever tell your brother?"

"No," she dug her toes into the floor. "I didn't want to have to worry him about something so trivial."

Alice was looking at her with a sympathetic glimmer. "You're a pretty brave girl, you know?"

Lenalee didn't want to respond to a compliment she hardly believed in. "But I still don't understand _why _I have to get so emotionally distraught every time my period comes..."

"Oh honey," Alice raised her voice dramatically, "That's so normal! We all feel like that when we get our period!"

The gravity of the news corrected her understanding rather bluntly. "It... _it is_?"

"Hell yes!"

A jewel of hope had sprung up in Lenalee's mind. "Then, is that why I act all weird around Allen lately?"

Her heart cowered a little as Alice let loose a hearty chain of giggles. "Oh god no!" The giggling continued, steadily growing in annoyance. "Honey..." Scooping both of Lenalee's hands into her own, Alice lifted her to her feet, her rich mocha eyes winking with devilish sweetness as they peered deep into her own violet choked orbs. "You're _in love_."

This time it was Lenalee's turn to laugh; Alice had proclaimed the statement with such conviction, such powerful faith and belief and committal, that she almost felt _bad_ for laughing at such a poorly assumed fact. Did she seriously take her for being some kind of hopelessly naïve love virgin or something?

"You're pretty funny Alice," Lenalee sniggered. "I mean, that's such a huge lie, it's really not even—" something wasn't feeling right. Her laughter, it suddenly felt rather heavy, like trying to laugh while lifting a giant weight over your head, or trying to laugh at a joke that you didn't even understand, or, better yet, trying to do both those things without the slightest bit of congenial legitimacy. Suddenly, the laughter didn't seem so genuine anymore...

Alice's expression was uncannily emoting exactly what Lenalee's gut now felt like. "Are you sure about that, hun?"

A firework of anxiety fizzled inside Lenalee's head; she really didn't have a solid, comprehendible answer to that.

"I... I..." the words protruding from her mouth sounded oddly foreign, almost like they were too big for her lips to mouth. "I—"

The sudden shrieking of the door mercilessly murdered the privacy; Allen Walker was in the doorway, nothing but a pair of baby blue boxers covering his pasty skin. He looked as if he was on a murderous shopping spree. "WHERE ARE THEY?"

Alice's expression immediately turned to a look of prize-winning dumb-blonde vacuity. "Whatever do you mean, Allena-chan?"

"MY CLOTHES."

"Oh please, you're wearing your cutesy little boxers—"

"MY REAL LIFE MALE CLOTHES, ALICE."

"Ugh, honey, those were so unflattering—"

"ALICE WHERE ARE THEY?"

"Silly Allena-chan, how am _I _suppo—"

"LINK SAID YOU DID IT."

"Ugh, Linky-kins, how could he?"

Under any normal circumstances, Lenalee would've been hacking her guts up in laughter right about now; however, as she witnessed Allen and Alice's bantering spitfire, an unusual desire numbed her habitual instincts, freezing her core and making her heart shiver and her blood rich with ice splinters. It almost felt that, if she dared move, dare do something even a teensy bit uncharacteristic of herself, her entire body would rupture into a splintery fountain of ice shards, leaving her broken body to melt and pool into the ground where it would forever whisper ringed liquid secrets. Her emotions had become an iceberg, fractured into icy fragments that floated with heavenly isolation throughout her body, little bits of mirror, bitingly, bitingly cold mirror, that bobbed up and down, up and down, as the voices around her rang like worn-out sound waves, distant and muffled.

"Allen-kun."

All sounds had become crisp again, yet her voice, it had acted impulsively. It had spoken with that same impetuous twinge, taking her vocal cords hostage and forcing them to say things they didn't really mean. Or at least, maybe not knowingly meant…

Even so, she could hardly remain stuck on such bothers as she caught Allen's face soften at the sound of her voice. Apparently disengaged from his argument, his expression changed from his previous look of overblown masculine rage to that of pure Allen Walker, flashing between thankfulness, guilt, and desperation within the span of one second before finally settling on an entertainingly cute combination of all three. He was so unexpectedly typical.

"Allen-kun, I'll help you find some clothes."

A tornado of butterfly wings began to assault her stomach. Although really, her nervousness felt more like carnivorous moths laying eggs along her stomach walls than the normal flu-like symptoms elicited by those nervous species of butterflies that tickle the stomach into a state of woozy discomfort. She hadn't a clue what she was doing. Not a clue. And she also didn't know where she was going to take Allen. But the opportunity to spend a little time with him, even if she wasn't quite sure _why_ she even wanted such a chance, was rather ideal.

"Aww, come _on_ Lena-chan," Alice was apparently unhappy with the idea of removing her nudity victim from out under her eyes. "You'll ruin all the fun if you take him away!"

"He'll catch cold if he stays like this Alice," Lenalee remarked as she weaved her fingers into Allen's hand (who , she couldn't help but roll her eyes at, was currently looking around as if the entire room was blinking florescent-colored obscenities). With a tug, she led the nearly naked exorcist through a back door and into the (thankfully) empty hallways of Asian branch.

Her intuitive sense of direction quickly led her down some sort of path.

"Good thing nobody will see you like this, hey Allen-kun?" Lenalee gave him a quick wink before picking up her pace, the need to achieve privacy before someone disturbed the barrenness of the hallways quite substantial.

Allen just blinked back at her, raw perplexity paling his face into a look of confusion. "But, Lenalee, where... why..."

She rendered him unable to speak by sharply turning a corner, leading them into a cramped hallway vacant of any other living creatures besides themselves. Lenalee increased her velocity, turning a completely unprepared Allen's voice into a stretched-out screech. She tried her absolute hardest not to lose focus and laugh, for fear of accidentally letting go of Allen and causing him some rather severe head trauma.

A mauve door a little ways ahead caught the attention of her radar.

"Let's go in here, shall we?"

She didn't even allow Allen a chance to mutter one of his bewildered queries before she had tugged him into the room, its mauve door thrown open and shut in a matter of seconds. Darkness was spilling across every corner of the room, providing both an assurance of privacy and that hint of uncertainty classically generated by all hues of darkness.

"Lenalee," Allen sounded genuinely puzzled. "Do you really know where we are right now?"

In an attempt to avoid his question for at least a few seconds, she began fingering the wall for any traces of a light source. "Not really."

"Oh."

Silence. Silence that competed with the stark darkness of the darkness. Light years and light years of it. They both knew what had just happened. Lenalee knew that Allen knew. Allen knew that Lenalee knew. They both knew, even despite the obscure veil of darkness, the fact that absolutely no male clothing source was located in the room that they were in. It was as painfully obvious as a padlock with the code taped to the back. Yet still, somehow, the darkness rendered them both speechless.

Suddenly, Lenalee felt her fingers brush past the tinny features of an oil lamp.

"Oh! I think I found—"

With the grace of watery jello she went crashing to the floor, her foot lodged against something hard and painfully solid.

"Uhh, fuck..." she bit her lip as pain gnawed her foot senseless. "Dammit..."

His warmth reached her faster than she had anticipated. Or perhaps, faster than she had been braced for. "Are you okay, Lenalee?"

His voice was so soft and quiet. So perfectly, perfectly, soft and quiet.

The situation, it felt so ridiculously cliché; instead of verbalizing her condition, Lenalee placed her hand delicately atop Allen's, its warmth igniting a sort of craving within her to simply fall into his arms and wrap herself in his aural blanket. She lifted her hand blindly, her fingers grazing the surface of Allen's face with hesitant tenderness.

"Allen-kun..."

The awkward moment of beauty was brusquely interrupted by the estranged squealing of the door.

"H-HEY!" Lenalee nearly face-planted as Allen went sprinting for the door. "DON'T CLOSE IT! PLEASE DON'T—"

Too late. The clicking of the door's lock clearly signified that it was too late.

They had been locked in.

Or...

"Allen-kun," Lenalee breathed, her eyes wide despite the room's bleary hue. "Allen-kun, we can get out right? We can... we can... get... out..."

She waited as Allen fiddled with what she assumed was the lock. The fiddling intensified after a few moments, until it had reached a climatic level of fiddling that indicated something was most likely not functioning as it was intended to. Her body temperature dropped a few degrees.

"Allen-kun... is something wrong... with the door?" the words slithered anxiously from her mouth. "Allen-kun?"

"Uh, Lenalee..." his voice had adopted a heavy sort of strength, as if he were about to report the number of casualties in a war. "There's no lock on this door."

"What do you mean _there's no lock_?" panic strangled her voice into a high-pitched squeak. "There's _always_ locks on the insides of doors Allen-kun, that's just common sen—"

"But there isn't one, Lenalee."

Even amidst the darkness, Lenalee could see Allen slowly turning to face her, the stiffness attained when one realizes they are in a completely helpless situation making his movements jerky and uncoordinated. "Lenalee?"

"Allen-kun," her voice shook with heavy disbelief. "How can there possibly not be a lock," she took a raspy breath, "when we _just_ heard somebody LOCK IT?"

"I, uh…"

"Be quiet and let me—" Lenalee's attempt at feeling the locked door's lockless lock for herself ended in complete failure as her boobs smashed against the ground, the floor staring up at her and a steadily intensifying pain jabbing at her foot.

"What the _fuck_…"

Her forehead met the ground with a stony smash. She could hear Allen uselessly pissing around with what _should_ have been a god damn lock, but she knew… oh she knew… they were in Asian Branch for fuck's sake. They did everything backwards. Was it really that fucking strange for there to be a door that only locked from the outside, and couldn't be locked from within?

"There's nothing there, Lenalee."

Of all the fucking things.

…..

Those damn Asian branchers.

* * *

**A/N: **... I'm sorry about the whole lock, thingy. I realized after I wrote it that its kinda impossible to get locked in from the inside of a room, so, I ever so kindly ask you... PLEASE IGNORE MY IDIOCY AND USE YOUR IMAGINATION! Because that's what fanfic is all about, ne? 8D

And also, I actually had a really good time writing about Lenalee first getting her period... I know, that sounds weird, but it was fun for me nonetheless. And poor poor Allen-kun... I should really give him a break, I mean, look what's going on in the manga! GAHHHH I won't even start on that...

Well minna, let us hope that I can get out the next chapter sometime in the near future. Not that anyone probably really cares, but ya, I'll perservere!

Huge thank yous go out to everyone who has reviewed, faved, and watched this story, most especially to those loyal readers who have stuck with me and this story since the very beginning. YOU ALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE! And of course, all reads/reviews/faves/watches are very much so welcome and appreciated!


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